Game Over
by Zenith the Hedgehog
Summary: The next innovation in gaming has been released for the Xbox 720: a virtual-reality MMORPG called "Game Over". Sonic and co. get hooked out of hopeless boredom; a certain PSYcho kill bill desperately seeks a little wreck-ognition from the time-killer. Little does anyone realize its dark secrets... Please note that no animals were actually murdered in the making of this fic.
1. That Damn FOURTH Chaos Emerald

___Original working title: "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Mobian"_

_WARNING: OOC level is off the charts. Just so you know. __Remember, your reviews are always appreciated._

* * *

June 2, 2014

I could barely make out the buzzing of my clock in the early morning hours. It was an uncomfortable feeling, granted it could sometimes make its way into your umpteenth "weird dream" in a week. It was always such a pain to snap back into reality. What bothered me even more was that I couldn't recall why I programmed that damn FOURTH Chaos Emerald to annoy me out of my virtual reality in the first place. Hell, I didn't remember what caused me to abandon Minnesota for a new life in a parallel dimension, where society didn't give a damn if you were a freak. Perhaps the fact that this was anything but my idea to begin with made the resulting side effects beneficial. And yet the feeling that I'd be stuck as a freak for the rest of my life made me numbly uncomfortable. If there was anyone else in this world having the same experience, I really didn't want to meet that dude.

As I limped into the living room, I was still slowly coming to my senses. In fact, I didn't notice the television on at all until I inadvertently sprayed cold water all over my face, Goddammit.

"...Level seven is impossible. If anyone beats it, I will [BLEEP] a brick. On camera. It's that hard!" That was all I heard as I started down the stairs to refresh the freak in which I could never get used to being trapped.

Trying not to think about the infinite amount of ways the day could go horribly wrong was only making me more restless. The radio-like sound that suddenly occurred to me didn't bother me much, as I was only turning the corner that led to the stairway to heaven...

"WHASSUP!" The impact of that little ambush was too much to handle.

* * *

I had to give the red echidna that had popped out of nowhere credit for giving me the true wake-up call that would render me damn vulnerable to panic attacks, even though I couldn't think of anything else that could make me go from zero to pissed-off in about half a second.

"Yo... you alright, dude? Sorry about what Knuckles did to ya..." I felt several taps on my forehead before I eventually came to. "Bro..."

As soon as I noticed some guy right in front of me, I got back up in a flash. "Sonic&#$!? What was that all about?"

"Are you feeling ok?" The way he said that made me think he was staging an intervention. "Anything broken at all? Any sort of..."

"My dignity," I quickly interrupted the cobalt chump with that short reply. Thank God my first instinct was disproven. "Well... that little display seems to have fully snapped me into reality..."

"That's good to hear." He gave me the "thumbs-up".

"Question, does Knuckles ever have anything better to do than annoy me when he's not on Master Emerald duty?"

The blue blur took a moment to answer. "Actually, he kinda bothers the rest of us too, but hopefully he'll be off our backs when that new game comes out."

I was clearly lost. Not just that I didn't know what he was talking about, but he was being... _friendly_ for once. But he was still going a bit fast. "What game are you talking about?"

"You mean you haven't heard of a video game called Game Over? It's like, Xbox 720 technology times 19! Wait until you check out level 7 — they say it's absolutely impossible. I imagine it's harder than any zone I've ever played in my career."

I thought back to earlier this morning. "You know, I think I did hear something about a level 7..."

"Great! So you're gonna play it?"

Blue was always going too fast, and it showed. "Whoa, stop for a moment. I just heard about it from you. You know I don't like to play certain types of games. This one you're telling me about, it was called Game Over, was it? I don't know, but whatever. If it's a shooting game, then hell no."

"I've heard talk that this game is like a virtual reality world, like, you're literally in the game." He must have thought I didn't believe him from that contemptuous look on my face. "I don't know. That's what I've heard. Don't blame me if it's a bust, ok!? Oh yeah, the game comes out in two days."

I didn't know whether or not to trust that dude, so I said quite unsurely, "Alright, I'll check it out, but _only_ if everyone I know starts blabbing about it."


	2. Dorky-Looking Glasses

_Thanks for your lack of bugging me to release the rest of this fic. Enjoy chapter 2..._

* * *

June 4, 2014

I questioned how this day could get any less boring than I'd figured it'd be by instinct. Naturally, the first idea that came into my head was the President of the United States of Oops getting assassinated... or maybe I'd get assassinated, after I'd allowed the lowly fox to get away with the Pepsi about 3.5 years ago. And yet it was likely that no one else could remember if that ever actually happened, so I knew that theory was gone.

I was still quite restless from trying to brainstorm some hypothetical situations that probably made no sense. It was just plain ridiculous. In fact, I'd given no thought to that one game the blue blur had described to me just two days earlier until I limped into the living room and became uber-disgusted at the resulting scene. There, lined up right in front of the television with dorky-looking glasses, each holding something whose unfamiliar shape I couldn't make out, stood three losers doing something...

"What the hell is going on!?" I snapped almost immediately. I realized one second later that I didn't want to know at all. I started to walk away, looking well defeated. As a sudden spasm caused me to turn around again, all three losers still looked as though no one said anything. I slowly walked back towards the TV, where something awkward was definitely going on here. "I said, what the hell are you doing!?" At this point, they could only have been doin' your mom. And yet no answer, still. I eventually noticed the joysticks on whatever they were messin' with, yet one thing contradicted my first theory: the screen was blank. Were they playing a video game? Perhaps my schizophrenia took over? No.

I walked over to the dude who usually sported the heavy duty, sharp-knuckled gloves. I tapped on his wrist and yelled loudly, "What are you playing?" Five seconds. Then to my left, this ninja-like loser with that horn of his. "Pause the freakin' game!" Five seconds. Then one more space to the left, the Easter Bunny. Well, at least she oughta be. I yelled as loud as possible, wait for it...

"CREAM!"

Five more seconds. Still nothing. I got the feeling that the others were pulling a two-month-late April Fools joke on me. Amsterdam. With that idea, I suddenly got super paranoid. I didn't care about my dignity anymore. Now I knew for sure I had become schizophrenic. _What to do what to do what to do what to do_...

I don't know how my panic attack ceased in about one second. Maybe it had to do with the extra controller suddenly coming to me, tempting me to pick it up and start the game, or whatever. Amsterdam...

"GAME OVER," the logo on the controller said. In between the words was a silhouette of this dude, whose identity no one could picture from the silhouette in the logo... unless you were the Mongols.

So maybe it _was_ "that game". Or maybe it was my case of schizophrenia. Either way, I held my resistance forcingly for one more minute as I trotted back down the stairway to hell. Not paying attention to the bloodstained scene that still remained two days after it occurred, I scrambled all across the floor, looking for any trace of any other freaks quite possibly roaming somewhere I didn't know about. Unfortunately, I stumbled upon a carbon copy of the sitch from the room I had forced myself to abandon for two minutes — this time it was the cat and the bat. Them girls were acting just as awkward as the guys (or... the Mongols) one floor above me. But eventually my curiosity more or less took over. I grabbed the only remaining controller, put on those dorky glasses, and it was at that point when I knew I had entered that virtual reality world. "I hate Ke$ha," I muttered blankly as I pressed Start.

* * *

_Stay tuned to find out if I get writer's block along the way. If that ends up being the case, hopefully I'll have a side project to tide you over for the time being (which will ultimately go down as the worst story ever)._


	3. Screw History Class

Level 1

I appeared to have teleported in an odd manner to a snapshot of an average day in downtown St. Paul (or, Minneapolis… how do you tell the difference?). I didn't remember what either looked like, since I no longer lived in Minnesota. I was pretty much stuck in a weird world from this parallel dimension, which was vastly inhabited by these genetically modified humanoid animals. But now that I was one of them, I had to retake history class all over again. And I ended up doing that in the most awkward fashion evar: by reading the whole damn Sonic comic series! Yes, all three hundred something issues. And yes, I was forced to get an infinite subscription for a hefty fee. I imagined it was like that in every society to ever exist… except for the Mongols.

However, the textured objects that stood out from the city background made it evident that this was no St. Paul or Minneapolis. But it would've made a great site for biking (which was big in Minneapolis). There were gold coins hidden among the city background scattered everywhere I looked. But whatever kind of damage they did to a player, I had to find out.

It was a slow and painfully excruciating (or excruciatingly painful, whatever order in which you prefer them is fine with me) process. I felt like I should've had more coins than I actually collected. Then the nagging question just popped: Were they worthless? Was I wasting valuable time picking up 14 painted discs from wherever the hell? I figured the other players would've been grabbing whatever they could find on the ground, whatever that low-res tarmac was made of.

I was numbly uncomfortable from the sudden, out-of-nowhere spawning of my worst enemy all over the place. Amsterdam. I tried to slowly, quietly, _back away_ so as to find a detour. I didn't realize that I was getting myself caught in some other player's path. I had only turned around for about half a second when I felt the force of a giant fist yanking me off the ground by my shirt, which had inexplicably turned black. Wreck-It Ralph? You wish. "You're getting mugged, kid."

I wasn't really the world's greatest ad-libber. So I resorted to the classic response from asdfmovie. "No, you're getting mugged."

As painful as the yanking was, plopping back to the ground face first wasn't exactly what I'd call the best landing ever. On the other hand, at least he fell for it. "Aaah! How the hell does that even work!" No, A Flock of Seagulls did not start to chase him, yet he ran. He ran so far away... like a boss.

Right where the brute was before that display of trickery lay something whose identity I done forgot for a split second. It was just the shiny texture that caught my eyes. I figured some idiot must've dropped it while doing a barrel roll. Mezmerized by its blue glow, I quickly picked the emerald up and deposited it into my left pocket. Yes, I haz pockets in my pants. We all know how I'd look like a fool with my pants on the ground.

Poke. "Hey you! Come back when you take that mask off!"

The kid who'd said that revealed himself to be dark in every way imaginable: dark skin, dark profile, dark expression. His comment was thrown at me at least four times a month. All because I was a freak. "I'll take it off when you step in some cement!"

Evidently there was no point in saying that. Poke again. I could've sworn he couldn't read. Last I checked, there was no "poke me" logo on my shirt. "Your emerald, or your life."

How in the hell did he know I had a Chaos Emerald. "What do you mean, I have the choice?" Another "Peace Sells" moment.

He just started towards me, as if I'd picked the emerald over my life. This nagging voice in my head told me not to escape. Of course I saw no point in that option. But at the last second, an ax swung by like a bolt out of the blue. Just great. I got to view the last few seconds of my life.

* * *

I noticed blood all around me. Not that I was afraid of the sight of blood, because I wasn't. When I looked down, in front of me lay the severed head of the black guy. "You alright, dude?" I heard an unknown voice call to me as its owner came into the empty gore scene.

I don't know why, but I was suddenly relieved to hear a voice like that. "Finally someone I can talk to! Geez."

"Yeah you got that right," the cat holding a bloodstained ax muttered blankly before giving me a nasty look. "I'm Bridgette, BTW."

BTW. Don't ask me how that kind of urbanized language emerged in my dimension. I still didn't understand the word "swag". "I'm Zenith. So you were the one who flung that ax?"

"Precisely." She nodded.

"Uh-huh... well thanks for saving my butt back there. I thought for sure I'd get killed by either that kid or the ax."

"Well, I don't exactly have the best aim in the world," she admitted.

At this point I just wanted to get out of here. "Is there a way out of this level?"

"There should be, but I guess they don't allow the use of cheat codes and such. And I didn't read the instruction manual either."

"Well that sucks! So now we're stuck here for a while."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Let's just look for a portal or something to level 2." She pointed towards the only way out of the alley into which I'd stumbled by accident.

"I concur." I subsequently hit myself. But then again, I felt I could trust her to keep a secret.

There weren't many surprises in the area of the level that we covered. An unclear path led us to a frogger-type map, which I thought was kinda dumb. Following that was an area that looked to be above-ground with only tetris blocks for platforms to get across. If you fell, it was game over. At the same time, I told myself over and over not to get in a relationship with Bridgette, as I'd just met her. _Don't look down. Don't look down._ Yet I looked the slightest bit down and nearly lost my balance.

"Dude, watch your step," she said while I tried to remain focused on not falling to my death. I didn't notice how much closer I was inching to safety until the cat yelled from behind me, "Look there! A free passageway to level 2!" That had to be a cleverly designed display of trickery. "No really, check this out!"

I took my level of difficulty in identifying whomever I could trust into consideration for about thirty seconds. _Screw that._

"It says you have to have a Chaos Emerald." Chaos Emerald. Those words repeated through my head about a googol times. I pulled out the gem that I found way back there. I gave it a long, nasty look.

"Wow! How did you get that so quickly!?"

"I don't know. I figure some guy must've dropped it."

She viewed the machine that looked like the "Beam me up Scotty" teleporter from Star Trek. Then her face suddenly endowed a sad look. "There's room for only one of us..."

You know, it's been said that where there's a will, there's a way. And I found that way. "No problem."


	4. Dandelion and Mauvelous

Level 2

"Ouch! Get off me, would you!?"

Maybe trying to fit two freaks in a teleporter was a bad idea. The space available was so small that the cat's force from sitting on me squished me to death. Well, almost.

"What's with that hair, anyway?" Bridgette bothered to ask in that easy-to-pick-up smart tone.

"I don't know, maybe I like my hair like that. And for that matter, why do you have two pwnytails!?"

"Say what now?"

"Exactly. Now I think I'm gonna want to explore this level for a while."

"Suit yourself. I've got a level 7 to pursue." She took off in an instant, and six seconds later she was nowhere in my sight. Now that I had one less thing to think about, I viewed the whole level of (seemingly) boring around me. I turned to my left. Boring. I turned to my right. Boring. _Come on, this is a waste of my time. How do I get out of the game without getting a Game Over? Or is it even possible?_

A gun. Whoever gave the creator of this game the idea to rip off Portal was an idiot. _It's official. My gaming life is over. Modern games suck!_

That was when I noticed the two side-by-side paths in front of me. One path was supported by walls on either side, but the other was once again in the penalty-for-falling style. I took the left path, not because I was left-handed, but because I wanted to. And right away a wall blocked the path. There weren't many options for trying to maneuver around that obstacle, as no walls surrounded the path. But I guess that made figuring out how to get past the obstacles a bit easier. And yet I had some major difficulty getting used to the controls when it came to the portal gun and its effects. Only pulling the trigger did nothing. You had to push one of two ordinarily-colored buttons in conjunction with pulling on it. And you couldn't fire twice with one color — the second shot would cancel out the first blast's effect. One had to be blue and one had to be orange. How creative. They should've made the colors dandelion and mauvelous.

I wondered if I could shoot that gun at someone else as a weapon. I crouched to a squat and leaned against the highest wall I'd come to so far, trying to avoid other players carrying portal guns. I held my Star Trek phaser the James Bond way (or at least one of them) as if I was playing Call of Duty or Tomb Raider or somethin'. All was quiet for a while. Too quiet, maybe.

A loud laser noise erupted behind me. Before I could figure out what just happened, I found a blue portal hole in the wall (no game show reference intended). By my calculations, the hole looked as though if it landed inches lower, it could've taken my head off clean. That was the last stick. I went on the attack and fired away for about 20 seconds. _What, is this a less gory version of Call of Duty or something, with portal guns in place of real revolvers? Weird. I don't really wanna know what'll happen if I get hit._

"Hey you! You with the mask! Outa the way!" Racist bitch... just like Eric Cartman. I just wish he and certain other people would just drop their envy. "I'm gonna shoot if you don't move it!"

Whether that racist bitch had the intention to kill me, I had no clue. In the available space between the two walls blocking the path, I sped from one wall to the previous, slightly shorter wall, faster than a cobalt chump capable of running at the speed of sound. Well, not quite.

He took out his portal gun. With the pull of a trigger, a laser-like blast shoved its way across the platform, and carved a blue hole in it. One second later, a hole of orange cut through the Impossiwall (no game show reference intended). He secured it back in his pocket, walked casually towards the corrupted ground, and jumped through his man-made warp zone, making the mistake of landing feet first. He came out through the orange hole feet first, and besides, he didn't come anywhere close to clearing the required height. He retreated to get a running start on this next attempt. On the count of three, he ran (not so far away) as fast as humanly possible and, careful not to make the same dumb move twice, dove head-first into his portal... but came up short by a foot. Evidently he was ready to give up. He turned to me, and said in a calmer manner than before: "Could you help me get over that wall?"

I had a legit reason to give in to his request — NOT because he was someone I knew. "Yeah, sure. I got another idea." I pulled out my gun, while he proceeded to reset his corrupted laser effects with the push of another button. I blasted in conjunction with the blue button straight at the wall, and the orange button two feet before it. "Stand back. I'm gonna need some room for a running start." After my path cleared up, I took a certain stance that might have made you think I was preparing to race against a blue hedgehog. A second after I took off, I reached a speed at which I was finally reminded why in the name of freakin' epic I even took that opportunity to abandon my life in Minnesota (but the nagging question of _how_ exactly they proceeded with that action still gave me nightmares). To be the odd man (or... hedgehog) out was actually kinda refreshing at times like these. As I got close enough to the wall, I bulleted head-first through the portal hole as if sliding into home plate in baseball. _Look at me fly. This is the best moment of my life._ I went so fast upon jumping out through the ground effect that resulted from me portalizing (which, after a long series of figurative translations, eventually came out to mean corrupting) two points on solid low-res tarmac that I managed to secure my left hand on the top of the wall. I had enough energy to force myself two inches higher and view the other side of the obstacle so clearly, it was like a video game afterlife. I could imagine just how a blue hedgehog might react to such a display: with contempt.

As I was still celebrating, I blasted a streak of orange on the "otherworldly" side blocked by the wall, thus canceling out the previous orange scar on the corrupted tarmac. That other dude casually walked towards the high obstacle and slid through the hole that remained on it. Don't you just love portal guns? I crashed down to the ground once he came up through that orange hole. As I refocused on the path ahead of us, a gate had suddenly appeared that led to the third damn level. As he trotted towards the not-so-secret passage, he turned around and said, "So what's up. Sorry about what I said back there. Thanks a lot for getting us over that wall."

"No problem." Never phunk with a human shooting a portal gun...


	5. Zenith Was a Racecar Driver

Level 3

Whatever the atmosphere of the third level was trying to convey, I sensed that it was no good. And yet I was still restless. I felt like that never should've happened. It was so ridiculous that it should be illegal. The air around me was suspiciously fresh as it was in the other two levels. I just wished the damn game would stop playing tricks on me. They were both unnecessary and distracting. At the rate at which they were piling up against me, it would turn into a ballroom blitz.

"Exa Race," a nearby sign read in bold print. Underneath it, written in fine print: "Win at any cost." Of course getting my head ripped off by some gangsta bikers or whoever the hell might possibly enter a competition so grueling that I might be called a wimp if I was to back out, was the last idea I could think of to pass the time — how much time had passed, anyway? I looked at my watch. 4:10 pm. _So time does fly when you're playing games. Yea, I'm gonna die. Whatever._

The sound of the radio struck me like a Bullet Bill. "I'm the King of Rock. There is none higher. Sucker MCs should call me sire. To burn my kingdom, you must use fire. I won't stop rocking 'til I retire." Good, I wasn't the only one here.

Eventually it occured to me that that wasn't the radio — some phonies were actually rapping them lyrics. The hippies — two in shades and the third sporting a Joe Simmons hat — looked so damn familiar, it was almost scary. I could've sworn a red echidna, a two-tailed fox, and a green hawk, unorthodox as it initially seemed, actually made sense to be acquainted with each other (except for the hawk) but they were acting totally different. "I am from around the way, and Knux goes to school every day, and Jet plays the records he has to play, and we get down with no delay. (hey!) I rule the party with the words I speak, and Knux says the rhymes that are unique, and Jet cuts the records every day of the week, and we are the crew that can never be beat. So don't try to diss me, try to be my friend, cuz if you do, you'll get yours in the end. The rock we say shall set a trend, because a devastating rap is what we send!"

Now that was what I call a third-degree-familiar tune. I slowly, ever so casually walked towards the Kings of Rock. "What is going on here?"

The fox boy looked at me in a weird manner. "Oh, we's just tryin' to kill our boredom 'til the next race starts."

"Uh-huh..." I couldn't hold back the nagging question anymore. "Knuckles, is that you?"

"No way, bro. You got DJ Knux in da house. Dat dere's my homeboy, TMC. And over dere you got Jam-Master Jet. We da Kings of Rock and you know it." Reality check...

"Uh, yeah. I overheard you dudes talking about how you was the baddest of the bad, and how you didn't need a band to rock... 'sire'."

The expression on Knux's face lightened up a bit. "Ah, so ya listen to our music! Very well, ya wanna hang with us for a while?"

You could tell that the fact that someone else owned that song would be news to this band of losers. "Yeah, bro. I'd love to." I was second-guessing that remark the second after it came out.

"So whassup?" Jet said in his gangsta tone.

_I hate Gangnam Style._ "Looks like the next race is gonna start soon."

We all glanced past the sign. An army of bloody vehicles piled in two straight lines in front of the starting point. As I continued to ponder my options, Knux pushed me aside, shouting, "Last one to grab a car has to fluff my hat!" The other dudes sped past me, closely following the red echidna through the now open gateway to the track.

A rather ugly voice stated through the PA system: "There are no rules in this race, except—" the Mongols? You wish. "—win at any cost." The second after that came back to me, I began to second-guess even going in there. "Come on, man up!" shouted the bratty hawk from way over there, the point that would determine how wimpy one was. I could swear he meant to say "hedgehog". "What's wrong... chicken? Hahaha." Two seconds later, he was looking blankly at me as I sped through the entrance gate to the raceway... backwards. I sported that Sonic smirk upon passing him by. "Grab a car already."

I waited for two hours, or so it seemed. I didn't notice the lines of waiting vehicles slowly filling up with drivers here and there. I was looking for ways to entertain for those two hours. "Who wants to rap battle?"

You can probably guess who of all players looked behind them toward me in reaction to my "challenge". Then they shared awkward looks at each other. Tails took the idea to the next level.

_I said I'm TMC, I'm bad  
__You ain't nothin', you been had  
__I's the very best there is  
__You're just a wee little lad!_

Yeah, I thought that was a lousy rhyme too. Knux decided to top that with his run.

_Well your rhymes were weak  
__Mine fit like a glove  
__Cuz Jet's got a face  
__Only a mother could love._

Pwned. I gave Knux's rap a 10. It was very unlikely Jet would be able to best this. I figured he flunked out of rapping school.

_Screw this crap  
__We all know who won  
__Someone ring a bell  
__Ding ding, I'm done._

"Let's see what you got!" the bratty hawk squealed at me like a sore loser. I immediately accepted his challenge, not considering the fact that I hated Gangnam Style.

_Fix your damn rhymes  
__And let the king pass  
__You can't pass go  
__Cuz my rapping is class  
__Consider this your warning  
__Next time you won't be lucky  
__And remember, I'm a pro  
__You're a rookie._

"Oh... my... goth."

"Epic win!"

"Loser." You can probably guess who said that.

"My work here is done," I said to myself.

"The race will begin... now." I didn't notice my engine revving up (or any of the others, for that matter). Fine time to sit here doing nothing while I'm waiting for the race to start, eh Luigi? "One, two, three, go!" Of course the car breaking the speed limit in about half a second easily snapped me out of my boredom.

Obstacles were everywhere. It was almost hard work to swerve around anything and everything that got in the path. When I tried to grab a power-up of some sort, another driver decided to be a jerk and Rammstein into my vehicle, causing it to almost crash into a wall. I hoped that was the closest I'd get to crashing, but as I focused on another item box, yet another player ambushed me at the last second, pushing my bike/stroller/Segway/whatever with so much force that I lost my grip and fell off the course, without the bike/stroller/Segway/whatever to crush me upon landing. _Faaaaaaaaaaaaaalling..._

That number sticking out from my chest caught me by surprise. A big fat "5" came into plain view for half a second, but it was replaced by a "4" faster than you could say "Game Over". Was this my life count?

I was insanely lucky to have found a hidden path once unnoticed by me. But it felt all the more miraculous that I crash-landed on another vehicle. It didn't matter to me that some other loser was already behind the wheel. "My turn, sucker," I sassed as I pulled him off the seat and took it over, getting back on the course in no time flat.

Jam-Master Jet pulled up in front of me. He turned around and shouted, "Push the red button!"

The red button. A small text on the red button read "gullible". Just another one of his weird tricks, how lovely. I was determined to prove myself too smart to fall for something like that. "Hey, look to your right. It says 'gullible'."

"Oh does it now?" Two seconds. "Ok fine, I'll look!" He gazed in the opposite direction long enough for me to pull my devious prank. "Look over there, a distraction!"

"What!" Jet was frantically stomping his left foot where the emergency pedal usually was. He panicked when he realized his bike/stroller/Segway/whatever was not stopping when it was supposed to. He looked down where his (probably) weak foot was. It was the perfect time to unveil my clever display of trickery. I held up a brake and, waving it at the bratty hawk, shouted, "Looking for this?" I pulled up far enough ahead of him to avoid the bloody traffic jam that he would inevitably cause after skidding to a halt at the wrong time, resulting in crashing into the brick wall with that narrow hole that one could only pass through going straight... like a Rammstein.

"That's a big ramp..."

I gazed long and hard at the path ahead of me in awe. (awww...) I said "A-W-E". (oooh...) That's better. A gut instinct told me to floor it. Another voice in my head yelled that the heavily inclined plane was just impossible to clear. You can guess which side I took. After all, I wanted to win like any other player. However, the slightly bigger, more powerful car, piloted by my worst enemy, made me numbly uncomfortable AGAIN. _No worries, you can get up there. Nothing to be scared of! I mean, he's only human like everyone else, well almost everyone, and... you have nothing to be ashamed of! Look, you're at the peak of this ramp! Now get back out there and —_

A loud thump shook my bike/stroller/Segway/whatever at the VERY LAST SECOND. I was all of a sudden sliding to the left. I swerved further towards the edge of the course, perhaps in the OB area, with every inch that dumb vehicle of mine skidded towards the peak of the ramp. I thought I'd gained enough momentum, but most of it was stolen in an instant. I don't know how I even cleared the Impossiwall. _Faaaaaaaaaaaaaalling..._

I could've stuck the landing much more smoothly, but I was tilted too far to the right to land cleanly. You could say that was a "butthurt" touchdown. I felt scrapes on my left arm a second after recovering. Then I noticed a "3" where the slightly larger number was two minutes ago. Just great. At the rate I was dying, I wouldn't finish the race. At least now I could justify it being easier said than done... unless you were the Mongols.

_I finally got a power-up! Now I gotta find someplace to use it wisely..._

As I cautiously powered through every corner of the visible map of the course, I stumbled across a very peculiar sign. The easily visible bold print read "shortcut". But why the tarmac was dipping into a pool of liquid nitrogen beat me. I thought liquid nitrogen was colder than freezing and hazardous if you touched it. Almost no one would get anywhere near the magic substance that was so close to absolute zero that it would bring a sensation of "IT BURNS!" So I decided to be different... again.

_Huh? It's warm..._ I traversed rather smoothly through the maze of unpredictable madness. Perhaps those boosted reflexes and Chaos Emerald abilities and miscellaneous crap that I acquired five years ago had to do with this curious display of luck. But then the absolute zero liquid posed a problem. I couldn't breathe in this substance for whatever reason... I needed to get back on the course and get some artificial video game air or whatever. Almost there, come on...

"Oppan Gangnam Style!"

Wow, that was close. But when I heard that one line from the BGM playing in the background, I knew I was in big trouble. All of a sudden I was getting nowhere without viewing a rather disturbing sequence of dance moves done by PSYcho players all around me, even though the race was still not over. If only I could've taken my iPhone with me so I wouldn't have to suffer this over 9000. I was just lucky that I'd avoided listening to it long enough to not have it stuck in my head for months. The problem was that after I'd listened to it, I could never un-listen to it. I was slowly going PSYcho...

Thank God it was finally over. The time seemed to be going much slower. I was left totally paranoid for the rest of my life. I would never get that raisin of a song out of my head! I needed a miracle... "Final stretch!" Once again I was pulled out of that trance I'd referred to for about five years as my perception of "reality". It was becoming a nightmare. Snapping from "the real truth" to playing chess with some imaginary friends and back over and over was now a pain in the arse. When would this Rammstein end?

The checkered flag came into view. Finally something to think about while still trying to not die. I made it a personal goal to not think about what would happen if I died. However, I'd read so many near-death experience articles and such over the years that evidently it wasn't going so well. I glimpsed back at the competition behind me. A red echidna in an offroader was slowly closing the gap between the both of us rather quickly. That I totally did not understand. I was going as fast as I could, and the finish point was only 120 feet away, and yet my torpedo-esque vehicle was failing to an offroader. Pathetic — no, I think I oughta quote an atheist on an alternate subtitle from an episode of his now defunct TV show, as inspired by Harry Houdini: "Humbug!"

"Five... four... three..." The DJ on the monster truck caught up to me and skidded in front of me, causing my Bike to crash into his Kart. The impact of that nasty collision kept him skidding in the direction of the finish point; at the same time, I was sent flying in the same direction. I thought it was the end of the line for me. Whether or not I even crossed the finish, I was so in for a headshot crash. _Faaaaaaaaaaaaaalling..._

"Winner by a matter of two feet... Zen—"

With that rough of a landing, that was all I could make out. What other player might have a name starting with "Zen"? It only occurred to me after DJ Knux came up to me and gave me the "thumbs-up" that I was in fact, that "Zen". He stuttered in a calmer manner than usual: "I have to admit that I was impressed with that heck of a performance back there. You rocked and you rolled. You know that the top three players get to advance to the next level, right?"

I was confuzed by that remark. "No one ever told me that! It's not like I have cheats or anything!"

He smirked like a boss. "What can I say? Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!" G.I. Joe. "Too bad I gotta leave the other Kings of Rock behind. Now let's scramble. I got a level 7 to pursue, and so do you."

"Yeah, you got that right. Thanks a lot. I appreciate your support." _Where's the portal to level 4? Is it behind — oh, there it is._

* * *

_While I'm working on part 6, make sure to check out the poll on my profile. Happy voting!_


	6. My Worst Enemy

Level 4

Something about the peculiar-looking arena that supposedly hosted level 4 looked so damn familiar, it was almost scary. I gazed everywhere around me in awe. The background was pitch black, with little, almost invisible specks of white dust scattered here and there. Something big, round, and blue caught my attention, and then it hit me like a bolt out of the blue: the Space Colony ARK. It was that long-abandoned space colony, intricate as I had always imagined it. The problem was that it was overcrowded — I saw players of all sorts, ages, you name it, everywhere I looked — which would've made sense if it was actually where the fourth level took place. But was it?

Chaos ensued as I tried to push my way through the mob of humans. What, did the humans get this game two years before I had a chance? Adding insult to injury, the feeling that I'd run into instant death plagued my every following thought, action, deed, etc. I was still going PSYcho... It was much worse now that I'd actually listened to that song for once. Of course I didn't want to, but it was the only thing I could hear for the longest four minutes of my life. The fact that the video could reach a billion views on YouTube wasn't helping, neither. But at least it was on track to surpass "Baby".

The staleness of the air in this "level" suggested that I might be here for a long-ass time. I surveyed practically every corner of the otherwise empty colony but saw no trace of anything linked to how to beat the level or where the escape portal even was. Just great. I'd get to witness my untimely demise again.

I nervously strolled into the control room, where surprisingly no one dared to hide. Why this room in particular was empty was way beyond me. But the further I searched for a good hiding point, the more likely I felt to get ambushed. And sure enough, a sudden force from underneath me got ahold of my ankles. I flopped face first onto the cold metal floor, a pool of blood draining where my beat-up face lay. (Just kidding.) The force that prevented me from escaping its grasp pulled me into its death trap...

"You! Thank God you're here. Yes, I know that was an awkward way to get you to safety, but it was the only way I could think of, ok!?"

This freak intrigued me in more ways than one. His chest hair and that red stripe going across his ebony-furred quills stuck out like a sore thumb — none other than Shadow the Hedgehog...

I'd known him longer than I had anyone else, because I felt like I could relate to him in some unusual ways. Of course, no one knew him better than that blue idiot himself. But still, I was rather surprised to see him here. I would've thought he might've quit at this level, considering I knew a thing or two about the legacy of the ARK. I also knew that his past was shrouded in mystery, but of course I was no fool to ask him about it. You might be able to guess how he'd answer.

Shadow looked at me with a rather concerned face. This was not right at all. What did he do with the _real_ Shadow!? (I'm only exaggerating.) "You feeling ok, dude?"

I tried to remain as calm as possible. "I don't know. I've been having to deal with some rather odd occurrences recently, namely this game, and..."

I had more ideas as to what to tell him, but he stopped me before I could get them out of my system. "Oh yeah, I did a Google search, and rumor has it that the game is entirely based on weird. So... absolutely nothing is what it seems. Yeah. I know that it's scary, and stupid... and irrelevant... but that's just how it goes."

"Can I continue? So Knux went a bit crazy two days ago, maybe, and he decided to scare the living crap out of me one random moment..."

Once again, he didn't allow me to speak after a certain point. "You do realize he did that to all of us at one point or another... right?"

"Really?" I was relieved that I wasn't the only one, but all the more shocked that the red echidna would just do that whenever he felt like being annoying.

"Yeah, he was quite overstimulated when they first announced the release of this game."

But there was one more problem I had to have answered. "Also, I had this weird vision occur to me last night..."

At this point Shadow became uber-intrigued. "Eh? What did you visualize?"

I lied for two legitimate reasons. "I don't remember, it all happened so fast."

"I dunno. I find that a bit hard to believe. Did you get the feeling of being on the verge of death?"

"I don't know, I guess...?" Correction, his description was extremely accurate; I just didn't feel like admitting it. "I could barely feel myself. You know what, I hardly even felt _like_ myself."

"Ok..." I knew what he was thinking the second he muttered that sound effect. "Tell me what happened."

I wanted to tell him what happened... but then again, I didn't... and yet I still did. But Shadow wouldn't wait. And I didn't know anyone who would. "What happened was, last night in one of my dreams, I felt myself drifting away from my room, maybe from being extremely bored — no, I mean really really REALLY bored, like bored to the fifth power — and I was visited by random voices of all sorts..."

"What did they all say?"

I had nothing else to say in response to this inquiry. "I honestly don't remember. Maybe it went something along the lines of 'You're not who you think you are' and 'Don't do this to yourself' or something like that. And then..." This was becoming a chore to describe. "And then this girl came up to me..."

Another holdup by the ebony-and-crimson freak. "Really? What was her name? Come on, tell me now!"

It was my turn again. "Shadow, I don't know! It all happened too fast! But anyway, she went up to me and recited this... thing. I was somehow able to pick it up over the ensuing madness behind me. 'The servers are the seven Chaos'..."

He joined me in an intrigued manner. "'Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos.'" I could hear a sparkling sensation, as if it was trying to give my ears a seizure. Then it stopped.

All was quiet for ten seconds. Then Shadow spoke again. "I sure hope nothing serious happened..."

I replied in an assuring tone, "I think I would've figured it out by now if it did."

Something in his tone made it sound like he was dead serious. "No, really. It's very dangerous if you're holding a Chaos Emerald. Who knows what kind of trouble you could cause in the afterlife."

"In the what?!" He had me flabbergasted. "You actually believe that it exists? And I thought you were immune to death!"

"Well, put more simply, just permanent death. But I have traveled there once or twice... but of course being forced to turn back while I could or else be lost forever." How I wished I could've been like Shadow at that point. "You'll see when you get there."

"I don't know what you're talking about." It was seeming too unreal to be real. "I'm never going there. When I die... well, who knows? I might never die."

"Zenith, you're not like me. I'm practically ageless because I rely on Chaos energy, which is contained within the emeralds. And that energy lasts forever. I'd hate to see how badly you'd react with that kind of energy. To say the least, it is a beast to control. It's so unstable that very few have the power to harness its... well, power. I'm sorry. I'd recommend you don't try Chaos Spear or whatever anytime soon."

I'd figured all my life there were millions of awkward "facts" about myself I still wanted to know (and at the same time didn't). It was only just now that I resorted to hitting myself for being lazy all this time. After I got ahold of myself, I unknowingly said out loud, "I wonder, what if _I_ could do that..."

Shadow chortled a bit. "You'll never understand, kid. I can't tell whether your self-esteem is really high or really low. I'd hate to see how far down the hill it'd take you."

"I think I'll be fine, Shadow. And for the record, I'm 13. Don't call me a kid."

He shrugged sheepishly. "Fine. At least I know how to take a joke."

That statement of his was more wrong than the pronunciation of the word "wrong". "Don't push it, Shadow. And for that matter, no you don't. You know what, enough with the chatter. I wanna get out of here."

"I don't," he said in a cool tone.

"Well I got an idea. We'll wait until the area clears up..."

"How long do you think that'll take?"

"Ok, fine. I'll go look for the escape portal right now. Have fun by yourself."

His next response, having come from nearly six inches behind me, caught me by surprise. "On second thought, why spend the rest of my life crammed in that spot where nothing ever happens. I'm coming with you."

That statement only confirmed that he done done _something_ with the real Shadow. I figured it was dumb luck that we didn't run into trouble with them other players. Shadow would've been just as uncomfortable as I was from those run-ins. Humans: my worst enemy.

* * *

Shadow and I stared in awe at the hideous beast guarding the portal. "No way. I'll lose all my lives before I ever make it through... that!"

Shadow nodded in agreement. "So much for the untold riches. I'm screwed."

Quitter. "Wait, I think I have a plan to get past that guy. You wanna hear it?"

"Maybe later. I'm going back to cram myself in that tight space over there."

"No, it has to involve both of us, otherwise it won't work."

He pushed me aside. "Find someone else to do your bidding, ok!?"

I didn't care how hard I had to try, I wasn't gonna risk being stuck here for the rest of my life. "Do you wanna beat the game or what?"

"LATER."

"No, you're doing it now. Come with me." I took his hand and pulled him back to safety, the force of his grip almost dragging me in the opposite direction. I began to shove through my pocket, and felt a crystallized texture. The emerald was still there! "Ok, this may be a bad time to bring this up, but check out what I found in level 1..." I pulled out the crystal blue item.

Shadow studied it carefully. "Isn't that a fake?"

"I don't know. For all I know, one of the Chaos Emeralds you used to defeat Perfect Chaos or whatever may have been a fake. But even if it was, maybe we could blast that portal guard with this emerald!"

He looked back and forth at me and the emerald. Eventually he focused on me and said, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Probably not... "CHAOS SPEAR!" we shouted at each other in a loud whisper simultaneously.

Shadow stopped me for a moment. "I don't know about that. What if the guy respawned?"

That idea made sense for once. But by now the situation was problematic. "Guess you're right, eh. Ok I have another idea. Punch me."

"Why would you want me to do that?!"

I explained as carefully as possible, "I can distract the idiot guarding the portal if you get me close enough. When I eavesdropped on him before I met you back there, I noticed he was frequently going out of position, trying to kill other players who tried to get close. When he sees me, he'll need to get closer for a better range. That's where you come in."

The black blur thought for seven seconds. "You know, that's not such a bad idea. But of course I have the problem of controlling how hard I punch..."

"If you wanna fake it, I don't care. Humans are stupid anyway."

"I am 250% positive that you're right on that," he joked in agreement. "But then we have G.U.N. agents. God, they're just awful. They're like, extremely efficient..."

"Whatever. They always set their minds on one thing, and yet they hardly ever realize what they're actually doing."

"Yeah, don't get me started on that."

"Whatever," I remarked. I poked my head out as if spying on our friend the portal guard. He was still doing nothing. Five seconds. "Now, Shadow!" As if right on cue, Shadow gave me a powerful hook right where I would imitate a blue idiot's trademark grin, without even any time to flinch.

"Bad idea?" I heard a familiar voice inquire before I lost consciousness.


	7. An Irishman Walks Into a Bar

Level 5

"Oppan Gangnam Style!"

How 'bout that for a wake-up call? That's exactly what I got.

"So whassup?"

It wasn't until I noticed six other freaks to my right that I even conceived an idea as to what in the sweet name of everything unreal happened.

"Finally he's up and running!" I heard a rather unfamiliar voice shout, seemingly in my direction. The Australian-based source moved closer as I tried to put two and two together. "Hi! I'm Marine the Raccoon. Shadow was telling us all about your plan to get us all past the last level, so we wanted to..."

_I hate nagging questions._ "Wait, what do you mean by 'us'?"

"My friends. Who else? That over there is Clyde, Blaze, Ula (foxey lady), Amy, and Rouge. I wish Silver was here." _I wish Amy wasn't._ "So we wanted to take the time to give our thanks to you. I was about ready to give up! What about you gals... and guy?" A clamor of agreement floated in the atmosphere. "But anyway, now that you're here, let's dance the night away!"

Evidently I had the wrong song in mind. "Sure. _Everyday I'm shufflin'._" As soon as I started shufflin', everyone gave me an awkward look, including Shadow.

Marine said, "No, silly. This is how you do it." Suddenly everyone (including Shadow) did the cowboy thing from THAT song.

Agitated from the impact of that PSYcho effect their dancing had influenced, I lost my mind. "Shadow?! Don't tell me you listen to that song too?!"

"Come on, who doesn't? Talk about that beat. It's funky, it's catchy, and the dance moves are an instant classic. And of course, Oppan Gangnam Style!" Talk about a reality check. First Knux and Tails, and now Shadow was acting rather awkward. Them girls seemed to like him when he did the cowboy thing. "Come on! Aren't you gonna join us?"

I was really annoyed that I always had to be the outlier. I couldn't possibly stress clearly enough how sickening it was to be the odd man (or... hedgehog) out, especially when it had to do with Gangnam Style. "No! It's not that I hate that song, but I'm NOT gonna get it stuck in my head! Don't you know how many people have seen the video on YouTube?"

"Who gives a damn!" shouted the freak in ebony.

"I know, right?! At least it's better than Justin Beaver!"

All the girls turned to me and Shadow and gave us nasty looks. Amy started towards me. _Don't move a muscle._ "Ok, for starters, it's BIEBER. For another, we can like his music all we want."

I turned to my left. With a cool expression, arms crossed as usual (at least when it made sense), the ebony hedgehog nodded in agreement. I pulled my view back to Amy Thorn. "I don't know if you've heard... but 'Bieber' is a word in German that translates to 'beaver'. So in an essence, I can legitimately refer to him as Justin Beaver. Or as I like to call him... Justin the Beaver." Shadow gave me the "thumbs-up".

Instead of retreating, Aneurysm-It Amy only invaded my personal space further. _Don't even breathe._ "So you wanna play it that way, huh. I don't blame you. Let's have at it!" She hurled her body weight towards me, ready to make a full-body attack, giving me no time to retreat. But it turned out I didn't need to, for at that precise moment, the foxey lady yanked her shirt. The distance between that petite nose of hers and that petite nose of mine literally equaled two centimeters.

"Amy!" Ula scolded at the man-handed tomboy. "There is no need for violence in a situation like this! So what if he doesn't like Justin Bieber? There's no point in getting him to think otherwise with fights! And furthermore, his opinion shouldn't have an effect on yours!"

Meanwhile, to my left still, with that usual am-I-the-only-one-bothered-by-this-madness expression on his face, which was regularly occupied by his trademark scowl, the ebony-with-strip-of-red-on-his-quills hedgehog asked openly, "Am I the only one bothered by this madness?"

"No."

Apparently Club-It Clyde knew what I was thinking at that moment. "Oppan Gangnam Style!" Of course that only made the madness worse for me, but not Shadow — aha! — thus contradicting what he just said. The _real_ answer to that question was that _I_ was the only one bothered by this madness. That idiot!

"Come on! You know you want to!"

Still agitated, I shouted, "NO! I CAN'T DANCE!" That statement was as true as Scott Raynor. The main reason for that was that I kinda lost my moves after Michael Jackson suffered caridac arrest. Consequently, moonwalking became just impossible for me. There, I said it. Quit asking me about it or telling me otherwise.

The ugly voice arose from the commotion on the PA system. "Attention all gamers, stand on the red line." _O rly? What if I don't?_ And yet no one else had the same idea going around her or his mind. The red line was the boundary between safety and game over, for one misstep over the laser boundary would result in falling to one's death. "Choose your youngest player." A small platform formed from the debris scattered around the off-limits area of the level. Marine stepped forward onto the platform, which floated in mid-air. "Choose your most emo player." Clyde barely won over Shadow in that category, mainly for his looks. "Choose your strongest player." Amy tried to take the next position, but Shadow shoved her out of the way, not willing to let a girl show him up with a hammer.

I zoned out from whatever was going on in level 5. At this point I wanted to be back in level 2. Rouge was looking at me in a weird fashion. I took three steps in her direction. "Rouge, why do you hate me?"

Her resulting expression caught me off guard. "That's bogus! I don't hate you."

"Then explain why you flunked me from World History!" I didn't have any report cards to back it up, but I didn't need any. Ok, to tell you the truth, I didn't actually flunk that class, but the instructor, who just so happened to be that Bat Girl, constantly put me down because I was the shortest student in the class.

I knew that she knew what I was talking about, but she refused to admit it. "I don't understand. You were like, the best in the class. I could've sworn you read all 300-plus issues ahead of time."

"Yeah, well I didn't! But YOU were the one who picked on me for being the shortest!"

"What? I did nothing of the sort! I know you aced half of those exams. As far as I'm concerned, you have this talent that not many others have. And besides, I could've sworn I put the correct scores in the gradebook... maybe someone tried to sabotage your reputation?" The problem was, I didn't have a reputation.

"Yeah, we'll see about that," I said to her in a threatening tone.

"Choose your shortest player." _I fail at life._

Rouge motioned me towards the last mid-air platform, supposedly designated for me, for I was the only one here who stood at less than three feet. "You'd better get out there. They won't be waiting much longer." I did as she said.

On the first step, I felt as if I might've fallen to my untimely demise. And I thought that was nothing. But then the platform started to move beyond my control. Shake shake shimmy. Again, I didn't want to do that, but lacking a sense of balance, I had to go to certain extremes to claim it back.

The black metal bars appearing in front of the other players' feet out of nowhere occurred to me only after I noticed Shadow and Marine and someone else pulling theirs up and whacking them at players to their sides for fun. They also shouted that forbidden phrase over and over and over.

"Face your opponents," the announcer guy said quite clearly. At the moment the words came out, three of the girls' faces were swept by nervous looks. Evidently they didn't want to fight each other. And that made sense.

"The winner will proceed instantly to level 6. The losers will be given an immediate game over. And they cannot come back... EVAR." Total Drama reference.

Immediately the three girls shared their emotions. "This is too much. I can't do this," Ula trembled.

Amy shrugged. "Oh well. I'm going for the short one."

"The short one?!" I reacted openly. "Really?! Why not the emo? Why not the youngest? This is bias!"

"Fight!"

"Bias...?" Amy's face twitched a bit. "THIS IS SPARTA&#$%!" She lunged out at me like a total maniac. I used my metal weapon as a light saber to deflect her attack. Seeing as I'd stunned her momentarily, I drifted to the side so as to avoid the early action.

I waited.

Rouge didn't look too thrilled to see my act of wimpy. "What are you doing!"

"None of your business," I snapped. The only reason for that being that it was correct in more ways than four.

"Dude, get out there or you're never gonna win!"

I pondered for five seconds. In that short time, I noticed Amy trying to attack everyone in her path. One unfortunate freak lingered there for too long and was struck by the pink-glowing piece of metal that symbolized Amy's color. In other words, an Irishman walked into a bar. "No way. She's too dangerous."

Rouge tried to convince me otherwise. "Look, sometimes in life you have to tackle tough obstacles head-on in order to succeed. In this case, Amy is one of them, ok? Now get back out there and kick some ass!"

Actually, Rouge was like my personal motivator or whatever. I'd first figured that was the case about four years back when I started that species-appropriate history class. Too bad there was no one on YouTube to describe the history associated with the Sonic Comics who did so in a similar fashion as John Green with his Crash Course series on the Earth-related, human-associated subject of World History. (Actually, his brother Hank also had a Crash Course series for Biology, but the World History series was obviously better... because of the Mongols.) Not that I needed a personal motivator, but I felt like if everyone was gone, I'd become a nervous wreck. But then again, that was growing up, in Mark Hoppus's words.

When she yelled at me to get back in the game, it was at that moment when I got a clue as to what would happen had I delayed any further. With the boost of energy (and confidence) that came from the only girl in Team Dark, I powered back into the competition.

Already I was ambushed by Amy. "You're never getting away, you son-of-a-bitch!" Apparently she was still pissed over not so much. She jabbed my face so hard she nearly gave me another black eye. But the Sparta was still to come. She rammed her bar at me, charging like a beast. I had no time to dodge her attack. A sudden force jolted me in reverse, giving me no control over how far I went, where I was going, or how badly the resulting throbbing pain pricked like thorn. Enter the smaller life count: 2. "I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do!" she yelled as I tried to get up. I'd just leaned forward a touch when the same force pried itself through my silver chest hair, fighting into my abs. I could feel it. A piece of my ribcage snapped. My life count was now at a minimal level. _Make it stop..._

"GET UP, KID!"

"Zenith, don't give up! You can beat her back! Just stay up!"

That was all I needed to hear. Another relatively short boost came to me as if I'd gained an extra life (although clearly I'd never get one at this point, considering Amy was about to kill me first). Trying to fight back the sharp throbbing sensation that surged through my whole short body, I lunged the metal bar I'd managed to keep all this time forward (what, you thought I dropped it like a dumbass?) aiming at the pink hedgehog who tried to attack me at the same time.

An interesting chain of events followed. For starters, my weapon hooked sharply and struck Amy right where she was told to put her money — the emoticon looks like a dollar sign attached to a colon — when she tried to flirt with Sonic. No, I didn't give a damn that I'd just hit a girl. I figured both of those Team Dark members would've accepted it — after all, it wasn't them. Even so, I was still given no time to react accordingly, as the sharp end of her metal bar made an uppercut motion in the worst part of my body possible. Sooner or later my neck would be liable to snap. And when it did, it only added to the already impossible sense of throbbing all over me. _Where's that 0... WHERE'S THAT 0!?_ But in the midst of this impossible pain, everything... ceased.

Stopped.

Went away.

Total black.

_I should be in the basement by now._

_I'm waiting..._

_Any day now..._

_Where did my shirt go?_

The only light around me was barely visible; it looked like it came from so far away.

Then it hit me.

Suddenly I knew.

_I'm dead._


	8. Four Z's and a Shadow

I dropped to the ground and panicked.

How could I let this happen!?

Amy... _killed_ me!?

I couldn't believe it. It was literally a psychobilly freakout.

_Ok, don't lose your head. Maybe you're not dead after all. Maybe it's just a dream. The whole thing could be nothing more than a nine-hour nightmare that you can't wake up from. Would you like to find out now? Yeah, I thought not._ I proceeded anyway.

The scenery I finally stumbled upon felt like a level 8, if such a level could exist. It was so... _touching_ to my retina that two seconds ago, I flipped from having some extreme difficulty describing how inevitably boring it was. Real talk. If at any point in my life I wanted to escape any kind of madness, this was the worst by miles. Or, kilometers. Or whatever measuring system you use. Geez.

"Welcome," a mythical-like voice said, which literally echoed forever, or so it seemed. "So your time came rather early. I feel like the first time we met was just yesterday." Beatles reference.

I had yet another panic attack as I frantically looked around for the owner of that familiar-sounding voice. Suddenly the poem/prayer/whatever had come back to me. My pockets were still intact. I creeped my right hand down the corresponding pouch in my pants and felt that ice-cold crystal structure. I still had the emerald with me...

A weird-looking figure appeared out of nowhere in front of me. My ability to describe its freakish form was incredibly hindered by my case of writer's block. Then the figure became all the clearer by the second, eventually taking the form of an orange-colored, female echidna. She was the same girl from the real midsummer night's dream from last night, but whatever her name was, I hadn't a clue. At that point, everything began to come back to me. Yes, everything. The poem/prayer/whatever made all the more sense. Exactly how it occurred to me was way beyond me, but that didn't seem to matter very long, for the dreamy feeling had still entranced me as if nothing else mattered.

The echidna spoke again in that mystic voice. "I didn't think you'd get here this fast. What brings you here, anyway?"

Even though her back was turned towards me, it was clear that this inquiry was directed at me. "I don't know, ok? I seriously hope that I'm dreaming right now. Last night this girl who looks a lot like you visited me in my dreams and said..."

"That was me," she snapped. I didn't move a muscle. "You seemed sort of tense back there, so I checked up on what was going on in your life. But then I stumbled upon the true source of your suffering."

I went berzerk, for I incorrectly felt that her remark didn't make sense. "Suffering? I wasn't suffering! What kind of suffering!?"

She sighed out of frustration. "Everyone in the world of flesh and bone suffers. In your case, it was caused by abandoning your past life. Just look at what you've done to your peers!"

My old peers. That thought stung me hard. I didn't want to have to suffer more than what I'd left behind!

"True, you came from Minnesota," she went on. "True, you tended to be the outlier to your company. True, you were always a firm believer in messed-up hair. But you didn't have to ditch your purpose in life! What if you were in AP World History in the tenth grade? What if you ruled the world?"

Time to get defensive. "Hold the what-ifs for a minute! That world was screwed without me. It would likely have been screwed with me. I might have flunked my job as President or whatever, if I was elected. I wasn't gonna fall in the mass destruction pit fueled by greed, fear, #YOLO, you get the point."

"You thought you were immune to death? Ha!" She laughed at my point of view like a boss. "You're a bigger deal than I'd imagined. You must be really tense. Here, why don't you come with me and get your hero's rest, ok? Whatever your name is?"

"NO! I HAVE A VIDEO GAME TO FINISH!"

She rolled her eyes and sighed again. "What am I gonna do with you."

"What can I say? I love being impossible," I sniggered. I dug the jewel from my pocket and held it up in front of me. I concentrated long and hard on a random view of the un-hunger games scene in level 5.

"Chaos..."

She tried to get in my way. "Whoa whoa whoa! Don't you move a muscle! What is that? A Chaos Emerald?"

"No," I snapped. "It's a fake Chaos Emerald."

"Har-d-har. I can tell the difference any day. It's just like Shadow said — who knows what kind of trouble you could cause in this world."

Needless to say, she lost me with that statement. Nothing ever made sense, even in a world where suffering was said to be extinct. And now she wanted the gem. "Don't you hear anything from that Chaos Emerald?"

Those words echoed inside me so many times that I almost got dizzy. _Don't you hear anything from that Chaos Emerald?_

All was quiet. I held the blue thing in front of me and waited. And waited. And waited. Then it happened. A small, barely audible gunshot fired. I thought it came from way over there, where I couldn't see a thing past 5000 feet.

"Well?"

I had to tell the truth. "Yes... I did hear something..."

She folded her arms contently. "Good. Now hand me the emerald."

Gotcha! "But it didn't come from the emerald."

She groaned in agony. "Just gimme the stupid thing!" Whatever her name was, this was bound to be the only thing on my mind for the next two months.

"I'm sorry, but now I realize all the things in that world I left behind that went wrong, and in the words of 'the' blue hedgehog... NO COPYRIGHT LAW IN THE UNIVERSE IS GONNA STOP ME! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a world to fix. CHAOS..."

"Wait, stop! There really is something in that emerald!"

"...CONTROL!"

* * *

Bad idea? Perchance. But it seemed to have paid off... for now.

Nothing but the sense of being familiar with where I stood could overpower me... except for the Mongols.

The number of other freaks in said arena was much lower than I'd last seen it. Bat Girl was still there, no surprise. The ebony hedgehog was now on the sideline. They looked to be having a nice conversation about who-knows-what. The real dilemma began to swarm in my head. _Sooner or later I'm bound to get noticed. Do I walk up to them and let them know I'm here, or do I walk away and let them find out for themselves?_

A much more feminine voice struck my ears. "You!" WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SEND THE POOR? "You nearly killed me! I can't believe you had the nerve to hit a girl! What have you got to say for yourself!?"

I knew exactly what I would say next. "Come get a piece of me." I struck a pose, put my hand up, and motioned my fingers in my direction so she'd get the idea. Then I realized that my red metal weapon was gone.

Amy was ready to strike as soon as she saw her cue, and I knew there was no turning back. (THUNDER!) She lunged towards me, her pink menace of a weapon positioned at an angle that would've killed me again!

If one random idea hadn't come to me at the last second, I may not have been able to cause the tables to turn. Right when it looked to be a foot away from my petite nose, I quickly ducked from the almost unavoidable rush. At the same time, I pulled up my hands, aiming them tirelessly at the cursed tool. Without time to pause, I clamped them together a split second later, at the right time... hopefully.

I toppled back to the tarmac in reverse. However, the relatively minor sensation of suffering that followed didn't last long in my mind, as I viewed the scene behind me, only to find a pink hedgehog, lying there, face first, looking all beat up. Wimpy. I looked down and saw the metal bar into which an Irishman was liable to walk, firmly attached to my left hand, having successfully eluded her grip.

Amy, unable to get up, noticing the weapon in my hand, gave me a look that begged for mercy. She faltered in her speech, "P-please don't k-k-kill me..."

Not satisfied at all with her quick submission, I took the liberty of killing some time first. "How many lives do you have?"

"Uh, four," she said.

"BULLSHIT!" I meant to yell. Only Team Dark had ever heard such a decoration to my vocabulary, but now that the secret was pretty much out, I could've cared less about what not to say. I took the weapon and used it to do something that I might possibly soon come to regret. I slammed the pink bar on the platform on which Amy lay, vulnerable to further attacks. The floating tile disintegrated, sending the pink hedgehog falling to her "death". She eventually dissipated at a certain point in the bottomless pit. I sent the cursed tool down there as well. GAME OVER.

A black hole-esque portal opened up from thin air. Not bothering to look back at the destruction that lingered behind me from the un-hunger games, I took three steps towards the hole in the imaginary wall until a certain voice struck my ears. "What was that all about?"

Something about that remark made me stop in my tracks. I don't know if it was the scolding tone, or from whence it came, or rather from _whom_ it came. I turned my head to face the madness that spread... and noticed Rouge the Bat, her arms folded, her foot tapping impatiently, her expression not so pleasant. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

Taken aback by her apparent change of heart, I said quite blankly, "I don't get it. I thought you wanted me to destroy..."

"No no no," she interrupted. "How did you get back here after you lost your last life?"

"Oh." And that was all I could say for seven seconds, as I hesitated to tell her what had transpired in the last fifteen minutes. "I think I was dead..."

"Really. Were you like, floating in mid-air without a body or something?"

"You wouldn't understand," I said, trying to cut this conversation short. "I gotta go. Duty calls, you know."

"Wait a minute, what was up with that random outburst before you gave Amy a game over?"

"ROUGE! Can we not talk about it? I'm really stressed out now that I got loads more stuff to worry about. Geez."

"Yeah? Like what?" she interrogated.

I listed all the ideas that came to me in five seconds. "I'm gonna be in trouble with the afterlife, Amy's gonna kill me for the rest of my life when I leave the game, and I really wanna beat the game. Goodbye." But I still couldn't reach the exit portal when a sudden force yanked my dark shirt and pulled me in reverse.

"Do you really think I wanna deal with this the hard way? Because I think you're suggesting you wanna go there."

She was getting on my nerves so much that one of my muscles had a sudden spasm. I gripped her hand to the point of almost breaking it and yanked it to the ground, flipping her as a result of my beastly action. Wherever Shadow was, I wasn't about to hear from him anytime soon. "The answer is NO! Have a nice day, good night, goodbye, good luck!" I stormed off the scene, through the portal, and most importantly, away from two-thirds of Team Dark. My next goal was not to run into them anymore.

* * *

Level 6

I realized two minutes into the lava-filled pit of demolition that was the sixth level that I didn't really mean what I'd said back there, and that the Animal I Have Become had overpowered me like a boss. This was not the way to get my life back. In response to the girl who asked, "Where's the wrecking guy?" Yeah, that's me, the guy who wrecks people's swag. Not entirely because the word itself is annoying. There's still #YOLO.

I was stopped by a much taller hedgehog of red by six or so inches. He was wearing a green shirt with a mushroom on it. A small text reading "get a life" was situated under the shroom. He stuck out his hand, ready to make a firm grip. "Hi. I'm Zero."

"Hi," I replied rather nervously. "I'm Zenith. So I see you're stuck on this level too. I have a feeling we're gonna be stuck here for a while..."

"So how'd you end up here? Did you enter that brawl tournament from the last level?"

"YES!" I said ecstatically. The ecstatic part faded away almost immediately. "But something weird happened, and now I don't know how many lives I have."

"Really. You don't look like the kind of guy who'd make it out of there in one piece."

"That's what everyone says! Geez." _I still fail at life._

"What, do you expect anyone to believe you when they see how short you are?"

"Of course I do!"

He folded his arms as if I was missing something blatantly obvious. "Whatever. Let's try to beat this stupid level."

"Way ahead of you, man. Or... hedgehog." I almost dropped my head in shame. _When will this over 9000 end?!_

"You know, you crack me up. But anyway. Let's go, bro!"

* * *

We stopped at a tattered bridge that looked to be in a bad sitch. Nine of the steps were either broken or missing. The passageway we took extended at the end of the floating crosswalk.

"Hi there!" A female hedgehog snapped us (or maybe just me) away from the entrancing walkway that led to more ground to cover. "Nice to meet you. I'm Zenon. With a Z, btw."

"With a Z, eh?" I inquired. "Can't be no coincidence..."

"Maybe it is," hypothesized the larger of the two hedgehog guys. "I'm Zero. That's Zenith. It's all the Z's."

"I know, right?" No she didn't. "What do you say we go look for some more Z's?"

"NO!" I shouted. "I just wanna beat the stupid level, ok!?" I'd only realized the dumb mistake I'd made when the other red hedgehogs gave me weird looks. "Never mind..." I moaned. "I don't talk much. And when I do, I tend to get way ahead of myself. I've been like this all my life, and I'm just sick of it! You don't know what it's like. You don't understand what I have to deal with every day! Go on without me and never talk to me again!" I turned my back on them; strike two.

I'd expected them to leave me as I'd ordered and not risk a strike three the moment I sat to punish myself. But after about two minutes, I could still hear noises coming from two freaks in particular, who could only be described as "not me". All that time I was sure I'd be left here, abandoned as I'd asked, looking for an answer to my problems, not giving a damn how ridiculously hard it was to find, you get the point. The fact that I didn't know how to meditate wasn't helping, neither.

A new voice overpowered the silence. "Hi, I'm Zeppo." Oh God. "What _is_ he doing here?"

It was evident that he was talking about me. Was he a red hedgehog like the rest of us? _But that's not important right now._

"Are we like, related in any way shape or form?" Zero's voice dethroned the sound of boring.

"I sure hope not," replied Zenon blankly.

The two minutes that followed were practically a nightmare. As I stared into the open, barren world, I felt like I was being watched. A voice began to shout in my head. _That was your worst move evar! I can't believe you'd try to escape when it was your time. Young man, don't you know the kind of trouble you're getting yourself into?_ "No I don't. How would I know if you don't?" I questioned my conscious self. _Because I'm your conscious self! You promised to fix the things that went wrong, but now you're only making them worse!_ "But I didn't promise anything..." _SILENCE! This has gone quite far enough. I want you to get out of the game, leave all your friends behind — yes, all of them — and go back to the afterlife, from whence you came, you stupid glitch!_

I suddenly lost it.

* * *

"Dude, what the hell happened!? Are you alright?!"

It took me a while to get my cool back. I noticed a black hedgehog kneeled in front of me. I recounted the events that had transpired just now. "Wha... what's going on?" I wondered out loud. "Am I dead?"

"No dice, kid. I don't know what the hell got into you, but you have another level to finish. Zero, how long has he been like this, do you think?"

"The water works leaked what, ten minutes ago? I don't know." I still couldn't believe that much time had passed already.

"Any particular reason at all?"

"No..." I lied. But the worst thought had just overtaken me at that moment: Was Shadow dead too? I came up near him and stuck my right arm around his shoulders, kind of in a best friend manner, but more like we were... _brothers_... than anything. He wasn't backing away... or even trying to kill me. His dark fur pricked mine gently, the same feeling that struck me from our last "man hug"... whenever that was. "Shadow, is that really you?" I couldn't help but question. I only needed a confirmation.

He patted my shoulder in return. "Yeah. You're gonna be fine. Just don't lose hope in yourself, or the level, or anything, really." His look was surprisingly serious. "And I'm sorry about the way Rouge treated you back there. I feel like I should've done something, but..."

"No, it's fine." No, it was not fine. I thought he would've lectured me about flipping her to the ground. "I'm trying to put all that behind me anyway." I sniffled a bit, still trying to recover from my emotional breakdown. "I'm sorry... I should like, try to get some rest for now..." _Ready to die... this time for real..._

"No." I knew he'd say that. "I'm not gonna let you do that. You still wanna beat the game, right?"

"Must've been hard," Zero said, as if finishing a sentence that no one had even started.

Shadow gave him a nasty look. "That's what she said."

"I was talking about the last level! Geez."

I could feel his stare once again after that remark. "So, you feeling any better, kid?"

I wiped off another drop of eyeball sweat, unable to think of the last time someone had actually tried to comfort me. I was at the verge of getting emotional again, for Shadow had done so much for me at a time like this that I didn't even know how to thank him properly.

I finally got back on my feet after a considerable amount of serious thinking. "Yeah... game on!" At this point I tried to act like nothing even happened, but of course four Z's and a Shadow were all there to witness it already.

"Good," Shadow said contently. "Now where do we go from here?"

Zenon looked to her right. Where one would think was solely a lava pit stretched further throughout the level, she must've seen something no one else did. "Who's up from some lava surfing?"

"Can't touch the lava," Zero pointed out, "or it's game over."

Shadow looked as if something was seriously wrong with that statement. "But I have four lives left."

"Doesn't matter. You fall in, you lose." Insert random generalization about lava in video games here. Yet somehow I knew that there were a few games that didn't have lava in them.

"Everyone got their racing goggles?" Zeppo announced. The other freaks reached their hands somewhere rather unlikely when it came to storage of small items, and pulled out pairs of goggles. I didn't know how they even got the goggles, as I seemed to be the only one here who didn't know what in the name of everything stupid Zeppo was talking about.

"Check your pockets," Zero hinted at me. Both of them? I thought to dig through my left pocket first. Not expecting to find anything significant, my expression after pulling from the storage pouch a pair of shades became clear.

Evidently Zenon was ready to start the show. "That works. Ok, it's settled. Last one to the end of the trail is a dink!" She dropped from the arena and was out of sight. I didn't know you could surf on lava. But then I was ambushed off the cliff by a dark figure. "Jump quickly and grab something to surf on!" _Faaaaaaaaaaaaaalling..._

With a stroke of luck, I stomped on a large crack of hot rock hard enough that it broke off and became my surfboard. Exactly where Zenon got the idea of lava surfing was way beyond me.

The impact of the landing made me nearly lose my balance. I was so ridiculously close to toppling into the lava, it wasn't even funny. But as the path smoothed out nicely, so did my stability. Eventually I gained full control of the false surfboard.

I continuously trailed everyone else, as certainly someone other than me had a map of the whole game, or at least this level. There was a problem with that theory, however: I thought cheating was against the rules — Zenon probably would've gotten a game over by now. As the level progressed, I couldn't tell what in the name of Ra the others were saying. I passed a wooden sign that read "shortcut ahead". How far ahead? I jerked away from the sudden appearance of the half-wall of rock when someone shouted, "...take the shortcut, Z!" It sounded like the ebony freak was continuing a sentence, and I must've not heard one or two words. So while the four hedgehogs ahead of me continued down the main path, I strayed towards the tight-fitting test of gullible. Check that, _considerably_ tight.

I was just barely short enough to squeeze my freakish body through the hole that supposedly led to a faster route to wherever the made-up lava path ended. Even as I tried to crouch into a ball, like you may have seen Sonic doing multiple times, I could feel my tail grinding against the boulder-ish wall, as if on fire. No, the sense of flaming had already surged throughout my body. The tight tunnel-like passage seemed to stretch an eternity.

I don't know when the burning feeling ceased, but when it did, the force of gravity had shrunk to a barely noticable pull. I was... _flying_ through the air with the fake surfboard, without any sense of falling. Somehow, I noticed a dark figure below me, as well as three others with my color of red. I quickly waved at the apparent shocks of hair in hopes of getting their attention... but then I hit a wall.

* * *

_I'm not dead again, am I? I sure hope not. Anywho, get ready for a twist within the next four weeks! :D_


	9. It's Still 'We the People', Right?

I quickly got up, only thankful for not dying again. Or so I thought. Not because I thought I might have from that kind of blow, but that it felt quite appalling. A thought had suddenly struck my mind: Had I lost the emerald? I hurriedly scrambled my right hand into the correspondant pocket. It was met with that familiar cold crystal texture. If I ever needed the emerald for something, thankfully it was still here.

"That's a big doorway..." I said to myself, staring at it-which-must-never-be-named-again in a mezmerized fashion. A blatantly ginormous text lit up on it that read "L7". It must have been locked up tighter than Fort Knox. It was considerably daunting, and haunting... and taunting... _Failed pretty bad, I have._

I pretended not to notice the diamond-shaped hole located you-know-where. There had to be another way...

"OPEN SESAME!"

Nothing moved even an inch. All I heard was the blatant echo of my not-so-valiant effort. Surely all my work wasn't wasted trying to advance one more level?

"LONG LIVE OLMEC!"

Once again, the after-effect of my simpleton-quality voice responded in an annoying tone. Evidently it was locking me out of the last level. At least I'd hoped it was the last level. _Perhaps I could just give up here and say I lost the game in level 6? No one's noticed me anywhere past the lava surfing flop... I hope._

I would've thought to keep this nonsense up had I not refocused on you-know-what. I finally took the blue gem from my pocket, keeping a firm grip on the curious beast. I held it up against you-know-what, moving it around, looking for a possible hint. _Which Chaos power should I use? Blast? Spear? Control? Or just plain Chaos?_ It was only when the jewel liable to get stolen by a certain Bat Girl jerked itself into that dent that I remembered what I was doing. The best idea evar subsequently came to me, just like that. I calmly relaxed my grip as I secured it into the curiously-shaped dent. As I'd predicted, it didn't fall to the ground. But then something moved. I could hear a deafening rumble, no doubt coming from the abrupt reaction. The gap between the doors widened the slightest bit, but then they drifted a considerable amount apart. Soon it was plain to notice the left half of the formerly blocked walkway swinging wide open. _I'm in!_ I slowly, ever so carefully walked through the now unblocked walkway, snatching the gem as I breathed the stereotypical stale air.

* * *

Level 7

Cake.

There were no signs of anyone, or even anything else among the green-and-black checkered background. Looks were definitely deceiving, however. I casually waited for something to disrupt the peace. Just too peaceful. It was almost disturbing. It was at a time like this when I wished I'd kept my portal gun... because I'd most likely use it to practice my freestyle skills. Again, my lack of dance made it difficult to bust a move. Sure, I'd accept any dance-off thrown at me, but I'd probably be thrown on the GROUND! "Nobody wants to see your moves... shorty!"

I thought I was beginning to slowly lose my mind. It must've been my price for dissing a fallen angel. Because I'm the expert on disrespect.

I heard a curious crashing sound. At first I didn't want to know exactly what was going on behind my back, because I had more stuff to worry about. At least I thought I did. I wasn't really keeping track of everything that was going on. All I could remember was that I was in huge trouble.

"How'd you get here so fast?"

I jolted my head in the opposite direction in response to that uber-familiar voice. "Sonic&#$!?" Cue Black Sabbath. "How'd YOU get here so fast!?"

"What can I say?" he blankly said and shrugged. "I'm the fastest thing alive!"

"Look, I got here first, and I've been really anticipating this moment all my life, and besides, I don't wanna get in any more hot water than I'm already in now, so how about you just leave me alone."

I turned to face the desolate background of the most boring level evar, or so it seemed, for now, not expecting to hear a pair of hurriedly scrambling feet anytime soon. I was just waiting... waiting for something to happen. That something involved a final boss — typical for a video game — which would've been the only "real" boss.

"Why do you want to be left here? You think I'd just let you get yourself killed by this final boss, if there even IS one?"

"I'M ALREADY DEAD," I snapped, although I didn't know for sure.

I could imagine the look on his face, even though I had my back turned towards him. "How's that possible?"

"I've said too much already. Geez..."

The feeling of being watched had returned to haunt me. This time, I wasn't about to freak the freak out. For starters, I didn't even know how to do that. The other thing was, this time around I had a pretty damn good feeling as to what to expect. _Ok, mystic voice. You got me. Hit me with it._

With pleasure? Not even close. "Oh yeah, Shadow asked me to find you if by some odd chance you drifted ahead of the Z-pack. I'm not gonna ask how you did that, but I'm gonna guess that it had something to do with..."

I had to stop him from saying anything more disturbing than that. "Dammit, Sonic! Why do you and Shadow and everyone else always have to monitor me!? I'm freakin' 13, 4COL! I saved the world once, 4COL! Is that not enough proof that I'm capable of doing stuff on my own!?"

He gave an awkward look, as if making a blatantly obvious point. "It only proves you're crazy, doing something like that while resisting help and advice from freaks like you."

"Are you saying that I have a problem? After all these years?!"

"Look, I don't have to put up with your sense of cocky, but the rest of us choose to only because... well, I don't know why. You should be thankful you haven't gotten yourself killed all these years."

"That's the problem! I sorta got into a heated brawl with Amy two levels ago..." I was starting to sweat like crazy.

"What made you think that was a good idea?"

"I didn't want to!" I yelled defensively. "But she started attacking me as if there was no tomorrow! I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn't listen! Am I just too hard to reason with!?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried since... you know what, forget it. I don't even wanna know."

I shook my head in disgust. "For the past three years, you and all your friends have turned down the idea that I was there to stop the stupid Time Eater when literally no one would back me up! What am I to you, huh? Answer me, dammit!" Yeah, I was referring to what actually happened in Sonic Generations after I'd crashed Sonic 4.

He folded his arms in disgust. He was tapping his foot over and over, as if by instinct. Clearly he was thinking about someting... perhaps _this_ Sonic Generations?

Blue finally snapped from his thought bubble. "I don't wanna offend you with this, but you really weren't supposed to have any involvement whatsoever in that game. For starters, it would've made a great comeback for me. I can't believe they made us put up with Secret Rings, Black Knight, especially Sonic 06. But seriously, that's what this whole deal is all about — me and my speed."

"Do you ever give a damn if one of your friends wants a game of their own because they get jealous?"

"All I know is that Sega don't, that's for sure. I mean, they used to, but we all know how many times that idea went wrong. You got Tails Adventure, Knuckles' Chaotix, even Shadow the Hedgehog. What's next, a PS4 came called... EGGMAN?"

Wow, to think he was that technologically advanced. "No, it's a PS2 game called Pro Evolution Soccer 15."

He gave me _that_ look again. "I'm not laughing."

"I'm not laughing, neither! I can't believe you still can't get those words embedded into your brain! Geez."

"You idiot! You ruined my chance at a new deal with Sega!? I could've been living the glory days of 1992 all over again, but NO, you had to..."

I drifted away from his pointless scolding momentarily, trying to recall that fateful 20th anniversary of his, or so everyone would've referred to it...

* * *

November 2, 2011

"Come on! We don't want to leave him without any backup, right? Let's go! All of you! He did all this for us, and now it's time for us to return the favor! Get moving!"

A crapload of freaks were dashing to the door, evidently following orders from the black hedgehog himself. I was still rather dizzy from meeting the same fate as everyone else that day — not including Silver or Shadow, for whatever reason — when it came to being sucked into different points in the space-time continuum. I ended up in Hank Hill Zone. And yet I liked Family Guy a lot better. I tried to follow them out of that wasteland he'd called a wasteland.

"Not you." He suddenly blocked the exit on me.

"What?" I muttered, dumbfounded. "Why not me? I don't know if you're hiding something from me, but I know that blue hedgehog is out there saving the universe or something, and I have a right to back him up just like the rest of you... ya know."

He pressed his fingers into his quills, shaking his head dismally. "Look, I'm not trying to kill your dreams, but I don't know if you're ready to take on something like this. I've known these guys longer than any of us have known you, and I feel like you might get too overconfident... you know, taking unnecessary risks. Like, enough to bring us down."

"Where the hell did that two-tailed fox go, anyway?"

"He must've tagged with that blue idiot. He does that all the time these days. Yeah, I don't get what's so special about him either. I mean, he's younger than most of us."

"ME TOO. GEEZ." If they really despised me like I could never imagine they would, I wouldn't stop at trying to redeem myself for whatever I done done that I couldn't readily think of. Evar. "Why don't you trust me? This could be my only chance to redeem myself for whatever I done done that I can't readily think of right now! Or..." What was the term I was looking for? "My big break!"

"I'm sorry, but we've all agreed that you staying behind is for the best. Also, you're still wrong. There should be more opportunities to come in the next three years."

"Look out there!" I pointed to the scene where freaks of all sorts were just chatting, and sure enough, a young rabbit was part of the commotion. "How do you explain that!? What the hell would Cream be doing where I should be! How old is she, anyway?"

"THAT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER," he spazzed above me. "Actually, she's very polite, and lady-like... and smart with her actions."

I'd had enough. I poked my head through the wide space in the doorway and shouted, "Hey, who here is cool if I tag with you behind the sidelines?" I could've sworn a million heads turned towards me but remained mute.

I felt an appalling shove, sending me falling in the opposite direction, flat on my tail. Then I heard the door slam shut in front of me. The familiar figure eyed me in contempt. "You get up, you're grounded."

WHAT!? I was not ready to submit to his force, even if he _was_ the Ultimate Lifeform. The third rule in a list of rules I'd made up for making comebacks was to mention my ex. But since I never had a girlfriend, I used the first name that came to me: "Maria would've wanted me to."

His reaction was priceless, and yet all the more screwed up. "OH NO YOU DIDN'T!" He curled into a ball and charged that son-of-a-bitch attack on me like a beast. I kicked him literally at the last second, right when it looked like he was ready to blast me to the wall. Then as he tried to recover from that falter, I dashed onto the roof of some loser's house and took cover.

The clueless ebony freak got back up and continued to hunt me down. "OK, I KNOW YOU'RE OUT HERE SOMEWHERE. YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM MY ULTIMATE POWER."

I continued to eavesdrop on the not-so-bloody scene. I almost lost it when I noticed about a billion lame reactions — the majority of them gave weird looks to that ebony hog-the-hedge as if _he_ was the freak. I couldn't tell you how ecstatic I almost got at the sight of _not_ being the outlier for just one second!

I could barely overhear their barely-audible-from-a-distance blabbing. The voices passed themselves off as all-male, all-serious with a dash of whatever here and there. Ever so carefully so as not to have any eyes thrown on the roof, I peeked at the commotion in disgust and noticed a red echidna trying to confront him calmly as if he'd gone insane. For whatever reason, I only started to understand the dialogue after I saw the flashes of red and black.

"I swear, that kid was in there just now," that all-too-familiar dark, deep voice protested. "He tried to kill me! I'm lucky to be alive!"

"Lucky?" a much lighter tone inquired. "I thought you were the Ultimate Lifeform!" As the "rumor" surfaced into my cranium, I began to get the hint that they were out to get me!

"I don't care. I'll get rid of him if it's the last thing I do!"

"SHADOW!" the sharp-fisted freak shouted over the wrath of his darkness. "First of all, you wanted to destroy Sonic, remember? Second... the guy you're talking about could be more useful than you think. He might be able to give us a serious advantage over our target. I don't care if he's different in any way; I feel that everyone should have their position regardless." I was rather surprised to hear this, and yet all the more relieved that not everyone had sided against me.

"You know what, I'm done. Let's just get the hell out of Dodge. Maybe he won't find out where we went!" Sure I would. "I got the Chaos Emerald."

"Wait a minute. If he doesn't go... I won't."

"You're missing the point, Knux! I don't care how much you hate this idea. Our situation depends entirely on Sonic, and he's the key to our deal with Sega. Now let's get a move on. All of you." He slowly dug out a bright green jewel and muttered something under his breath. Literally every creature in the area crowded around that mezmerizing texture.

He took a deep breath, and shouted in that booming echo: "CHAOS..."

I took a chance... and threw my undies on the stage. No wait — I'm underage.

I know what you're thinking. My actual huge risk involved me jumping into the Chaos Energy created by the mob of animals with so many names. (You know, freaks, anthros, Mobians...) I didn't care if they saw me, as I thought that Shadow would've called it a split-second after anyone noticed me. God, let this be over...

"...CONTROL!"

I'd literally come two inches from hitting the ground, three inches behind Shadow, when I was struck by a blinding light. The high-energy flash nearly crippled my left arm. Exactly why it didn't affect my legs or right arm (or my head) as much was way beyond me, but it was all momentary, and when I came back to my senses, I found myself hanging on the side of a floating rock. I could see two blue hedgehogs right in front of me, facing the "Time Eater" thing, or so they called it. Talk about zero gravity!

"Who was that guy?" I heard a young voice inquire.

Nothing came forth from his thought bubble. He definitely had to have been thinking something pretty nasty to answer the rabbit as a means of mentally traumatizing her... yeah.

Some time later I thought to spy on the two Sonics. I then realized what everyone else was talking about, what with stopping a bad guy that could eliminate time and space... and me... even the Mongols.

"Ok, whatever you are, if you wanna avoid an embarassing beatdown, you better give up now!" And yet I still didn't quite understand why the younger, lighter blue Sonic remained mute. Maybe he wanted to.

The resulting response came right on cue. "You're not in a position to demand anything, you nasty littly pincushion!"

"Dr. Eggman?" Apparently a certain fox boy was a little more surprised to notice a certain egghead more than I was. "But how?"

Something else puzzled the crap out of me — a suspiciously similar voice answered, "He had a little help!"

"Dr. Robotnik!" interjected a certain fox girl (just kidding).

"Nobody calls me that anymore." _Great idea! Make it so that you two are literally the same person! No one will ever be able to tell who's who!_ "If you would be so kind as to explain, gentleman genius Dr. Eggman from the future?"

_No way..._ Little did I realize that his statement would spark a living hell.

I momentarily sat behind all the action. I began to debate my motive for getting myself here, with no definite boundaries, level ground, you get the idea. After all, no one really liked Sonic that much since 2006. But then again, I _was_ looking for a little recognition, although I never got the hint that it may have been the wrong kind.

Some maniacal dude's maniacal laugh cut short my thought bubble, followed by a moment for recuperation. "We'll see who's crazy after I destroy both Sonics!" As if by instinct, I got momentarily excited. "...FOREVER!"

"Destroy ME?" the blue blah har-d-har'd at a politically incorrect Eggman. "You and what mustache? I beat you all the time by myself — and now there's two of me!"

"Then I'll have twice as much fun defeating you!" _Where did I put my camera!?_

The Time Eater thing started firing laser cannonballs. Maybe not laser, but they were probably built to kill. Of course them pincushions dodged them like a boss, retreating in opposite directions.

"Keep moving!" Sonic yelled. You can probably guess which one said it.

As they kept staying in the game, Eggman was going all the more crazy. I didn't say PSYcho this time because this was from 2011, remember?

Finally the blue champs built up enough energy to charge at that beast like a beast...

"OBJECTION!"

The blue chumps were practically swatted away, not even close to affecting its life count. _Don't get up... don't get up..._

A giant hand popped from a time portal, looking to deal some damage. It was quite shaky, so much that I almost panicked (again) when it waved violently towards me at first. Eventually it homed in on the two Sonics.

The devastating blow that followed somehow had a haunting impact on me, even with Sonic and Sonic almost fully destroyed, even if I wasn't the one stomped on to the point where my bones were blatantly close to being crushed. Was this _finally_ my time to shine?!

"That was just to soften you up. Now it's time to meet your doom!" It was. I was sure no one else could've been holding a Chaos Emerald anytime soon, since I was sure they didn't have pockets. I took my starting position in a hurry. _Ready... set..._

"You can do it, Sonic!" What (but more importantly, who) was that?!

"Come on, Sonic! Smack him!"

"Ugh... not you!" Dr. Eggman growled in a freakout tone. I would've done the same.

Even Shadow had given in. "You've got this, Sonic."

"You can win, Sonic."

_Where did all these freaks come from!? I thought I had a huge lead!_

"You've got the power, Sonic!"

"Focus your spirit."

"We're with you guys!"

"I believe in you, Sonic!"

"Don't give in, Sonic!"

"I know you can do this, Sonic!"

_Make it stop..._

Even Tails and Tails had taken the sidelines.

"You can win, Sonic!" she said.

"You always do!" he said, as if pointing out the blatantly obvious.

I tried to get ahold of myself, thinking this was all just a nightmare sprung from the best thing in the universe. I pinched my side over and over. But then I saw seven Chaos Emeralds circling around the two Sonics... and then I lost my cool.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

_I've been walking through these dead farms, but I don't mind..._

"...And you really should leave business like that to me! Look around you. We're in a video game. What if they were documenting all this without letting us know? Like they did in 2006?"

_I've been screaming through these dead lungs, but I can't find..._

When I slipped from my daydream, that was all I could recount from the blue blah's rant. "Do you really think they would?"

_Being that I love you so much..._

"Do you really think they wouldn't?"

_In the end, they all will say..._

"Ok, now you're just being too persistent. And really paranoid. You'll get your chance. That's what Sh—"

_Breaking someone else's heart again..._

Of course he got the wrong idea. "You say 'that's what she said', I'll Sonic-spin the life outa you."

_Find the little evil perpetrator..._

"No no no. As I was saying, THAT'S... WHAT... SHADOW... SAID... TO ME."

_And feed him to the hungry alligator..._

"Kid, for the last time, I do not believe you! Now leave me to fight this last boss and go back home!"

_You want it all, you want it all..._

"Ok, how do you not know my name by now? And where is this last boss anyway?"

_Love is not about the profits, n__or the riches in your dreams..._

The shaded background suddenly lit up behind me. I heard a familiar ugly voice shout, "Congratulations! You made it to level 7! YOU WON!"

_The arms of time are breaking off..._

I figured blue was too pissed at me to take any notice of this act of cunning. When I turned to face a direction opposite mine, I gazed in awe at a sight like nothing I'd ever seen up to that point. Too bad its sheer ugliness nearly burned my eyes out.

_Civilization is on trial..._

"Welcome to the game." His voice was now utterly sinister. As soon as he finished that sentence, the entire arena was filled with a mob of giant monsters, beasts, robots, the like. So apparently _this_ was the last major boss battle. "You ready?" I shouted to a certain blue hedgehog. But when I turned to my left, he was gone already.

_The clocks eliminating time..._

"DAMMIT!" I interjected, grabbing a blue emerald with my left hand and chukking it at the wall, accidentally putting a hilariously horrible curve on it. But then it took a turn for the blatantly weirder. Instead of smashing into a million pieces, it passed right through the wall as if it was imaginary. A loud thump shook my eardrums.

_Do you believe in me?_

And then I felt it.

* * *

_I'll make sure to put up the next chapter in time for Christmas. In the meantime, DFTBA, R&R, BBL, BYOB, etc., if you GMD._


	10. Teen Spirit

_This chapter actually has a lot more words than both of the previous chapters, so if you like a leg-numbing read, this is for you. Otherwise, read at your own risk._

* * *

June 5, 2014

Marky Mark day. How bogus.

The next thing I felt was an inexplicable, sudden throbbing sensation. They were out to get me... again. But atop that constant motion, there was a calming echo dominating my psyche. _Whatever you want from me, take it!_

_The servers are the seven Chaos..._

_Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart..._

_The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos..._

At those words, my life as a part-time Mobian was offically pointless. By that point I'd forgotten about my past life enough to feel awkward in my virtual reality. Sometimes I'd break down in agony from being stalked by that odd man (or... hedgehog) out feeling. But this time, I couldn't. Something in my mind wouldn't let me. Or maybe it was just my body reacting to some imaginary hand of doom to my disadvantage?

Whatever it was, I tried to fight the crippling effect with anything I could use. The trouble was, my options were heavily limited. What with the too-much surge of demolition attacking all my limbs, I had to rule them out instantly. Also, I couldn't feel my feet standing on anything.

I don't know when it hit me. All that time I'd been plagued by everything that I'd rejected, a certain poem/prayer/whatever had been hanging at a distance. I didn't know what it was about. I couldn't figure out any relevance it may have had in my situation. I'd always had big goals. But the others thought they were crazy. They even went as far as to say that I was crazy. I'd always said that anyone could be the hero of the day. But in the usual occasions in which I referred to myself, everyone else said that I had a big head, like too big for my own good. Not literally. But at that crucial moment, at which it seemed almost perfectly timed, I concentrated among the madness on those intriguing words...

I could feel the lines coming out, impeded by the Sparta that ensued.

_The servers are the seven Chaos..._

As soon as its true meaning had come to me from between the lines, I knew that I was still dead.

_Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart..._

_(I'm coming back... I think I'm ready...)_

_The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos..._

At that moment, everything that had violently attacked my body (and my senses) spontaneously receded. I found myself hanging onto something imaginary. Or maybe I was just floating... But at that point, that alien sense of selflessness contained in me, vanished, and soon enough, as you might see frequently in the world of cheesy cartoons, after a moment of stationary hangtime, I crash-landed on the stereotypical computer-generated, low-res tarmac.

_But lately I've been blind..._

I had no time to react. The moment I hit the tarmac, I felt something behind me snap. Hard. I almost screamed and/or groaned in agony. Somehow, it didn't mentally shock me that much, having used the unknown power of mind-over-matter. And that, fellow fanfic writers (and readers), is how I got the crooked tail.

"Kid, get up! I think I can beat these guys!"

_You leave me all alone, left in time..._

When did Sonic resort to hiding his arrogant self? Nevertheless, I tried to be cool with it. "What do you need from me?" I asked, not expecting a legit answer.

He proceeded in a surprising way. "Ok first off, I apologize if I went out of character at all the other day, or just two minutes ago. Second, did you ever notice how these guys look dang familiar? I think I can remember their weak spots. If we can attack those areas, we could possibly beat this stupid level!"

_You left me here to die, left in time..._

Of course I, distrustful as I was known to be, had an effective way of knowing whether someone was tall-taling, so to speak, when it came to a topic like that. Having regained my confidence, I retorted, "You know, I'd love to help you out and know that I'm being backed by someone I admire, but I just don't think it's worth my time anymore. I mean, I know I want to feel secure and all that, but I've gained a lot of — I don't know how to describe it — _intriguing_ trivia from my experience with this game, and now I figure there's more to life than beating the bad guy all the time. You know how you winning and Dr. Eggman losing is just tradition, right? But what if the two of you could negotiate? You know, work something out? I dunno."

He really lit into me. "The only problem with that is that he always wants the universe to himself, and he will stop at nothing to destroy me! His selfish actions are just unforgivable. I don't know how much it'll take for him to turn over a new leaf, or even if I'll believe him when he does!"

_You leave me all alone, left in time..._

I shook my head in shame. "Just go without me. I'm too broken right now."

"Alright, suit yourself." In the blink of my left eye, he was right where he said he'd be a minute ago.

_The arms of time are breaking off..._

I limped towards the shattered tenth wall at which I'd chukked my emerald, hoping to find it somewhere among the over 9000. Then I noticed three switches side by side suddenly appear, sitting underneath the precise point at which the stone would've smashed into only a hundred pieces had it failed to pass through. They were all shaped like the levers one would flip to turn on the living room lights, but were also much bigger. I stopped to think over my options almost too carefully. One flip could've led to certain death, while another might have unlocked the untold riches described before I'd ever heard of a game where you were the character.

"Switch all of them!" a sudden voice yelled loudly inside my corrupted cranium as to what to do with these curious beasts, so I reacted accordingly, flipping the one in the center first. After waiting for something to happen, I took a minute for some serious thinking before shoving the left lever down.

_Civilization is on trial..._

I started to feel it almost immediately. The entire arena shook with great evil and force. Evil force. Something like that. Objects everywhere were sent flying in all directions. Some robotic monster bosses disintegrated, fell into disrepair. About half were left still attacking a certain blue dude violently. In the midst of the new Sparta that ensued, I noticed the tenth wall split in half, the two resulting pieces sliding about a foot apart from each other, revealing a vast open field of beta testing. Or so it looked.

I continued to ponder the whole point of a game like this as I strolled into this vast world of beta. I'd sincerely hoped that it had something to do with a certain robot builder/doctor/mad scientist. For the longest time in twelve hours, everything in my view looked suspiciously normal.

_The clocks eliminating time..._

I felt like I'd been staring at the blah, open background for too long when a series of pixels started to distort into a random form, like a picture taken from one of those old-style cameras developing before my eyes. I was seeing things. I jolted my vision in the opposite direction, as my eyes soon felt to be aching like hell. I shoved my fingers upon them slowly in a dragging motion in an attempt to relieve the restlessness. The only thing I felt was equal damage to my fingers. Sooner or later this caused my fingers to give up, too. However, after I'd recuperated, the distorted image was still vastly upon me, now even more abnormally twisted, as if the beta testing field was really a freak show. But wait... the pixels were morphing into something real...?

I continued to stare openly, mezmerized at the tricks my mind had to have been playing on me as the pixelated structure became progressively clearer, all the more... lifelike.

_Do you believe..._

"I saw nothing!" I kept telling myself. But I could not deny that I did indeed see something that disturbed me to a point at which my mind was bleeding horribly. The problem with life was that I knew there were certain sights that I wasn't supposed to see. If only I didn't have to guess which ones they were.

I found myself breathing heavily, recovering from an unexpected panic attack. I don't remember what that was about. The only thing I could think of was escaping level 7, being ready to admit that I could not complete the game. Regardless, it was bound to give me nightmares.

_...in nothing!?_

The literally glowing figure that approached me amid my paranoia appeared to show panic in her expression as well. She stood well past my short stature, by about half a foot. She wore a navy blue dress with single stripes of silver running up and down on the sides. Her blonde/yellow hair was tied back, extending past her shoulders. She was missing a silver gauntlet, as evidenced by her bare (and horribly frostbitten) left hand. Somehow, her hands looked unusually small.

She appeared to falter in her footsteps, like a drunk guy, or someone who'd been asleep for God-knows-how-long. Or maybe both. As she continued to stare in her clueless expression, all she could come up with to say in her clueless tone was, "Where am I?"

As the female hedgehog's glow receded, I got that uncomfortable feeling all over again. "I don't know," I lied to some extent. "I know that I somehow warped into cyberspace, but I couldn't tell exactly..."

"Cyberspace?" she interjected chillingly. "How long have I been... you know... what's the word I'm looking for?"

"That doesn't matter right now. What matters is that we have to get out of here before we're trapped..." That was just a guess.

She quivered at the mention of being trapped. I figured we were on the same page. "I'll be right back," I said, although I had no clue where I was going. But then I noticed she was following me. Humbug.

I was ambushed by a certain blue dude as I (and the slightly older female) strolled into the boss battle scene, where neither he nor whatever kind of monster he was taking on had the upper hand. "You!" WHY DON'T PRESIDENTS FIGHT THE WAR? "Thank goodness you're here. I was wondering where you wandered off." He was now pointing past me at the hedgehog girl. "But uh, who is she?"

"I don't know!" I snapped in my blatant, yet frank tone.

"Never told you her name, eh." I guessed that she'd softly shook her head at that remark, because the next thing he said was, "So tell me, what _is_ your name anyway?"

But before any response could go audible, that suspiciously sinister voice squeaked, "Now, you _will_ die." It sounded like something you might hear from the safety warning from a certain TV program on Spike. Suddenly he went crazy. "MWAHAHAHA! TIME FOR MY ULTIMATE REVENGE ON HUMANITY! NO ONE CAN STOP ME!"

I couldn't tell whether to feel thankful that it wasn't me he was after, or pitiful for my worst enemy, or even if I should call his bluff. I began to debate over flipping the last switch.

A panicked she-hedgehog peeped more to herself than out loud, "That sounded awful familiar..."

I didn't want to know. By that point it had occurred to me that Sonic had dashed off again to fight this boss. It was evident that he was struggling to maintain his reputation of never giving up and sporting the 'tude. Bad time to sing a certain song by Joan Jett.

A sudden rush of energy forced into me the urge to retrieve that damn FOURTH Chaos Emerald from the beta field. I took some steps into the "real" side of level 7, turned around, and got into that starting position that I'd pirated from blue a long-ass fuqqin' time ago.

"Stop there for a moment," I heard a familiar voice shout from a distance. Unnecessary proof that this guy was capable of hitting the speed of sound. Needless to say, he screeched to a halt right in front of me. "I took care of the last switch, and I think it seemed to work against this beast."

"Great," I said hurriedly, and worriedly... and scurriedly... Not paying any attention to his topic, I tried to dash into unknown territory.

"Stop! If you go in there, you'll disintegrate!"

"You serious?" I was clearly puzzled. It may have just been another social beating. "How would you know?"

"I went in there myself. I could feel a tingling sensation welling up within me, and then I noticed I was dissipating into thin air..." I could tell he was pondering if he should be saying any of this. "But thankfully it's gone now. Who knows what could've happened to me had I stayed in there any longer..."

Of course there was still the matter of freak number three. "If that's what happened to you, then how did _she_ get here?"

That question seemed to crush him mentally. I could feel the thoughts racing in his mind. _How would I know? I lost track of what level I'm on, for Pete's sake!_ Ok, maybe he would've known that he was on the last level. But still, I wasn't expecting a legit answer.

The rumbling sound returned to intimidate us with evil and force. Evil force. Whatever. I found myself glancing left in the midst of the mass destruction pit.

"Over there!" I shouted, pointing at the dark hole that had just opened up on the black-and-green checkered wall. It twisted in such a distinct pattern that after having stared at it for ten seconds, I felt like my mind had been twisted in a similar manner. But then again, I'd been used to that dilusional feeling since 2010. Ok, maybe not.

I had initially planned to use the escape beam as a last-resort effort to ditch this dump! But as I debated its potential lethality, guess-who tried to leave us here without any advance warning...

"Sonic?" Gotcha again! "Where did... oh, of course." I was about to curse at him out loud. Then a sudden force dragged me in reverse by my shirt! I jolted my head slightly to the right and saw the black hand of death. That cold dark frostbitten hand nearly stared me into convulsions.

"Let him go," the feminine voice cracked. "He says he has to do this on his own."

"And I have something else to do on my own!" I snapped. Without thinking, I swatted the cold death note away from my shirt and dashed as fast as possible to the robotic beast, ready to kill as he (or, it) was. But at that moment, I realized that I'd forgotten how to pull the "Sonic spin dash" without being splattered all over the walls. Before I knew it, its metallic hand was right upon me. I saw no clear opportunity to squeeze by in one piece.

"Look out!" a champ-like tone blurted. I felt myself shoved sharply to my right, with no indication of where I even was in proportion with the hunk of iron, or silver, or whatever. That wouldn't be the only thing on my mind for much longer, however, as I was soon met with his cold grave stare. He seemed to communicate his concern for my possible mental disorder through this dark expression.

I lost my cool again, ready to quote Mike Muir. Instead, I almost yelled, "Sonic, do you really want me to check into a mental institution?!"

"Oh no, nothing of the sort! Don't be crazy. But, uh..."

The backlight of the background suddenly burned out the instant after he paused to think. I was ready to accuse him of blacking us out. I was ready to yell "you killed us all". I was ready to punch that son-of-a-bitch!

A force field opened up from thin air. As it began to expand rapidly, everything in front of it vanished into its gravitational pull. Sonic took one look behind him, and nearly lost it.

"Move out!" he snapped. Once again, faster than a bullet, he zoomed out of my sight. I'd missed my target — again!

She immediately followed suit. I guessed that they were breaking for the exit. Apparently a blue hedgehog really didn't give a damn 'bout his reputation. I, for one, figured that one of the switches had to do with the opening of the black hole-esque portal. I could make out someone in the distance passing through it. That was when I got ecstatic. _Finally I can escape this dump! But wait, Amy will probably be waiting on the other side to kill me again... but who gives a f&#k!_

As I made a run for the exit portal, I fixated my view on the female, about sixteen or so. She swerved a bit to avoid a fatal hit from Mr. Laser Cannon way over there, but also to properly align herself with the target area at which to strike. But then I realized I wasn't making as much progress as I would've liked. _How the hell does it seem so far away? Am I still dead?_

I was ready to conclude otherwise, but the moment she got close enough to the portal, she charged with great power and speed... but she slammed into an invisible shield with a blatant thud. I felt it too. Ouch!

I panicked yet again! To think Sonic would even think to leave me (and someone else) to literally die in a video game was just crushing my valvularicarsonatabloid on the GROUND! "I don't need your handouts, jackass!"

That was just a random thought. As I quickly recuperated, so did she. Perhaps not all hope was lost after all. I kept a-rollin' (unlike the train, which stopped in Albuquerque a long-ass fuqqin' time ago) until I caught up to her, careful to give her enough room to fall back safely without sideswiping me in the process. I tried to keep myself contained. _It's like the poster said. Just keep calm... and Gangnam Style. Wait, I did NOT just say that!?_

"I'm gonna try again... I honestly don't know what happened." She sounded to be reeling from the appalling blow that shook the now dark arena.

I was shaking my head in shame, pondering the circumstances of my inevitable death, as well as reminiscing my "death" from two levels ago. Or maybe I was just being selfish. Either way, I was shuddering at the thought of the imminent threat of death just before the not-so-crushing bump returned to shockwave my ears. I didn't want to believe that the hole of corruption had struck down on the she-hedgehog... again. But the moment I lapsed from my state of confusion, I noticed her standing against the beam of rejection as if taped to the wall. _Great. We're going down... down with the sickness._

I had to help her release the imaginary force pulling her up against freedom (or rejection, in her case) when she gestured me to do so by tapping her gloved hand on the wall. Once that was out of the way, she quivered chillingly. She looked back at the rapidly expanding force field, picking up speed as it eliminated the rest of the game, straight in our direction. "It's hopeless... I'm gonna panic..."

Amid the dark of the abandoned last boss arena, her reaction inspired a chilling comment of my own. "We're trapped..."

"I'm gonna die..." Her tone hinted slight panic.

"No, we're gonna die..." As calmly as possible, I walked over to the exit portal.

"I can't live like this...!" Her voice was now revealing an utmost bout of tremor and panic.

"I'm freaking out..." I still tried to keep my cool. Somehow it had worked up to this point. I held out my left hand at the beam of destiny. Expecting a similar outcome as had been recently demonstrated, I was a bit surprised when it passed through the portal unharmed, thankfully. I chose not to clarify this peculiar incident, so as to avoid a brutal "that's what she said" line.

Tears were now heavily leaking through her eyes. "I need another chance at life, or so help me... please!" She pulled my shirt towards her (again) and squeezed me within her bear arms (or arm bears), forcing a great deal of pain into me — physical from me, emotional from her. "It's just too much to handle..." She was openly sobbing on my dark shirt as she contorted the words.

I didn't know how to hold her in this moment of unfairness. I slowly, quietly, _backed away_ while still within her grasp, as trying to release it would've likely done no good. As "we" neared the beam of destiny again, she hopelessly muttered, "I'm sorry... I really don't wanna die here. So many things I'll never get to see..."

I was numbly uncomfortable from her display of... something. Mainly because I'd never had a girlfriend. In either case, I noticed she was looking me in the eyes, her expression filled with panic. I felt myself slipping into convulsions... again.

I took a deep breath, and eyed her for a short moment. "I'll find a way," I whispered. "I'll get you out of here. I'll get you to safety." A split-second later, I wished I hadn't said that.

"It's no use. It won't do any good," she said.

"I have an idea. Just go with it."

Maintaining the fact that I and she were _not_ a thing, we walked a bit closer to the black hole sun, holding one another's gloved hands tightly. "I hate loopholes," I grumbled to myself as I motioned the impossible pair of gauntlets towards freedom.

"Whoa... how'd that happen?"

I panicked as the force field ravaged upon us. "I have no time to explain! We have to get outa here before that force field sucks us into pure nothingness!" A split-second later, I wished I hadn't said THAT.

"Nothing...?" she started. The evil force of the vortex abruptly lifted her off the stereotypical low-res tarmac, threatening to swallow her into oblivion. Somehow, I got a feeling that she'd had an experience like this before, so needless to say, I refused to let go... not like the chick from the _Titanic_ movie, who actually did let go.

I didn't notice how badly I was failing against the all-powerful vortex of doom. I didn't notice the she-hedgehog crying her voicebox out for help. I didn't notice where the hell I was... But the moment I did, a sudden boost of energy engulfed me, and I fought back. Hard.

We were through.

* * *

I woke up, somehow unable to move. The idea that I'd been playing video games for too long struck me like the numbness of my left and right legs that followed. I found two controllers to my left. Yes, I was finally back in the basement.

I pushed myself up and looked down for a glimpse of whatever the hell happened in the real world while I was trapped in cyberspace. The menacing red goo all over my shirt seemed to taunt me maniacally. I figured my life wasn't completely back to normal. I twisted my view to the right, only to notice the crooked tail... and a young female hedgehog, lying on her side, with hardly any indication of being alive. She matched every aspect of her appearance in the game, from the blonde hair to the unusual navy blue dress, to her small hands, to the missing gauntlet. At that sight, I realized that the whole experience was real.

I then realized that my legs were so numb, I couldn't move them or prop myself to my feet. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, I had to use the little upper body strength I had to slide out of the cursed game chamber, back up the stairway to heaven, all by trial and error. As I neared the top, I could hear a meeting going on, probably consisting of every other freak acquainted with a blue blah.

"And so, I'd like to commemorate all the brave things he did for us... even if he almost broke us." I noticed him raising his champagne glass. And I know what you're thinking, so I'll do the reacting for you. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

"To Zenith the Hedgehog!" he concluded. What?!

The rest of the band raised their wine glasses, vodka containers, bottles of beer, whatever, in response. "To Zenith the Hedgehog," they said in unison, their drinks clinking with the other drinks. Again... what?!

I had no choice but to reveal myself amid this curious investigation. Once I got a clear view of the "meeting", I shouted, "Hey, what the hell are you guys going on about?"

Before a blatant deal of clamor could arise, a pink hedgehog lost it. "ZOMBIE ATTACK! OMG, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

And they did. Except for Rouge the Bat.

The entire living room literally became a stereotypical (seriously!) zoo breakout. A two-tailed fox was stealing all the bread in the fridge. A not-so-silly rabbit had to take a wicked yes. As Rouge remained seated on the coffee table, apparently reading the colorless newspaper, seemingly motionless, a black hedgehog stormed up to me, charging with great force. His foot swung right at my face, and before I knew it, I was flying back down, once again unable to control my motion. I'd only noticed the wall coming about a foot from my face when I slammed into a hard surface — the last thing I felt before I slipped into another blackout.

* * *

_A voice inside my head is inquiring, "Are you there? Can you hear me?"_

_"Thank you for rescuing my child..."_

_"I can't believe that evil man made her go through such a terrible afterlife..."_

_"You really weren't supposed to escape, but when you destroyed the artificial emerald, you also released her from the glass prison that had contained her for 58 years..."_

_"You and she will return home eventually..."_

_"In the meantime, you'd best go back to your friends. They won't be waiting for you much longer."_

* * *

"Lookit, he's waking up!"

"He's alive! Thank goodness!"

My left eye flickered open the slightest bit. I had a hard time understanding where I was, or the appalling blow to my face that ended me up here in the first place. I also had a hard time understanding the umpteenth-plus-one weird dream from two minutes ago.

"Uh... where am I?" I stuttered, stirring as I tried to sit up. "What happened last night?"

"Whoa, take it easy!" the fox snapped. "You might not wanna try to sit up for a while."

I was obviously puzzled by that sentence. "Why, are my legs busted or something?" The thick layers of cloth covering me from the waist down startled me a bit. Then the answer came to me. "Where's ol' Doc Severinsen?"

He pointed his "thumbs-up" that way. "Went to get a coffee. I don't understand it either. Beavers are not coffee drinkers!"

"Can you at least tell me what happened?"

The pink hedgehog sprinted into the room, panic lurking not-so-deep within her expression. "It was me, ok?! I'm the one who got you into this mess! I don't understand why I did it... oh geez, I sure hope you'll be ok..."

"Uh... yeah," he said awkwardly. "Also, your legs kinda gave out after having played video games for hours on end while standing that whole time. Also, you... broke nine bones. Including your left femur. Yeah. Pretty bad."

"So that's what happened..." I felt like I'd expected to hear that.

"So yeah. Also, ol' Doc Severinsen the coffee addict says that you're gonna need a wheelchair for the next few weeks, so you might wanna take it easy on them for now. He wants those bones to set back correctly. Don't worry, it's not permanent. You'll be back to running around and partying like it's 1999 in four weeks."

Suddenly I was (figuratively) the Henry Rowengartner of video games. _This is gonna be a great summer._ I noticed the female in navy blue straight to my right. That was when I figured out what I was gonna say to her.

I addressed Tails and Amy and about four other freaks behind the two, feeling weird as I stated my next request. "Uh, could you guys like, leave for a brief moment? We need to have a private conversation."

"Ok," Tails said. He turned back and motioned his finger towards the exit. "Yeah, let's leave him alone for a while."

As soon as the last of them left the room, very awkwardly, she got a little closer, but remained far enough back so as not to spark the imminent rumor that she and I were a thing. Because we were not. I couldn't help but feel disturbed by her presence. "What are you doing here, anyway?" I asked.

"You just don't understand what happened... but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

"Go on," I pushed. "Explain."

She was evidently hesitant to go on about that curious incident. She wiped off the pool of sweat... and spoke of it.

"I think I was dead..."

She shuddered violently at that thought, assuming it was true. Uber-intrigued, I just sat there without moving so much as a muscle.

"I can't recall what my past life was like," she muffled more to herself than out loud. "But anyway, you were holding an emerald with you, right?"

"Yes ma'am. In my right pocket, to be specific."

"I didn't need to know that," she snapped. "Anyway, I don't know if I'm making any sense... but my spirit was like, _contained_ within the emerald." Exactly how she'd jumped to that conclusion was way beyond me, but I knew we were on the same page. "And when you threw it past the boundary wall, it must've collapsed in on itself from the heavy pressure of the beta field..."

"What does all this have to do with you returning from death, anyway?"

Again, she hesitated. "Never mind," she concluded, shaking her head in shame. I could tell the water works was bound to leak again. "But I never wanna have to go through death again!" She was hyperventilating as she contorted the words.

"I can't stand the afterlife neither," I said. "They try to steal my life while I'm in the middle of doing something heroic for once! What's up with that!"

"Yeah, you got that right," she clarified. She took a shallow breath and muttered, "I'm sorry about your broken walking sticks..." What a vocabulary!

I lightly nodded. "I'm sorry about almost _killing_ the both of us..."

The room was silent as death for God-knows-how-long. The only thing I wanted to say was the word "titties". But of course I didn't.

She eventually decided to break the inaudible spell, ever so carefully sticking out her ungloved hand. "My name is Maria..." That one thing I'd felt I didn't need to know, now embedded into my cranium. Bummer. "Maria Robotnik."

_Now it's my turn. Don't get too nervous._

"My name's Zenith the Hedgehog. You can call me Zenith, Z-Storm (Storm was just a made-up surname that I'd given myself in 2010, that I'd never revealed to anyone), Z, or whatever else you can think of." I reached out to grasp the weapon with my corresponding hand, and then we shook. A moment like that would only come once every two years. How depressing.

Then the name struck me in a curious manner. Thinking back to that fateful moment in 2011, the year in which every Friday was plagued by Rebecca Black's cheesy song, when I'd made a dumb excuse to battle the Time Eater involving a fake ex — "Maria would've wanted me to" — perhaps she was the reason why the black hedgehog had gone berzerk.

"You know, I think you should meet one of my friends. I bet he'd be interested in you."

"Oh really?" she said. "What's his name?"

But before I could spit out my answer, I heard the words "Game Over" from a breaking news segment on the old-fashioned video box. (Because animals can't afford HD!) I leaned to the television to properly hear whatever the vixen-reporter was talking about.

"The game's creator was revealed two minutes ago to have been imprisoned in cyberspace 58 years ago after threatening to destroy all humans over the gunning down of his grandchild. We're still doubting that he's gotten over it by now. But right now we're broadcasting a repeat of a live telecast of his hopefully preventable plan of action, and this is what he had to say..."

The screen cut to the familiar old, ugly man with a massive mustache, sporting the Ozzy shades. He had the word "evil" written all over his face. Not literally.

"Good afternoon, citizens of Earth," he sniggered. "Do not be alarmed; in a mere twenty-four hours, you all will be DEAD."

The news reporter briefly interrupted his ridiculous speech. "Whether he wants to destroy us Mobians as well is still unclear as of now."

Back to Ozzy McBaldy. "I understand you haven't had a chance to hear from me until now, so I'll keep things short and sweet, and I'm gonna quote Sylvester Stallone on this, so bear with me." How could anyone bear with this modern-day Hitler?

"I'm coming back," he continued in his sinister tone. "To settle the score. For imprisoning me." His voice distorted like a boss. "For using me."

I looked back and met her mezmerized, yet entrancing eyes. "Do you know anything about this guy?" I asked.

She tensed up a bit before answering with a lie. "No..."

The creep on the screen went on. "Sixty years ago, I launched the Project Shadow to study immortality as a means to cure my only granddaughter of this terminal illness known only as 'NIDS'. And it was obviously going well until my mortal enemies from G.U.N. threatened to shut it down on me because they believed it would threaten the existence of mankind. Which is ironic in that they were the ones who funded the project in the first place! Anyway, when I refused, they were going to kill it off by force, not considering the fact that they, the hedgehog and my granddaughter, were practically inseparable. So when I found her name on the list of fatalities from G.U.N.'s untimely raid, I just went berserk!" Blah blah blah. Been there, done that.

I dug through my left pocket for my iPhone, having miraculously discovered it there five minutes earlier. I repeatedly tapped the screen to get to my YouTube inbox.

"So when technology got advanced enough, I began working on a new project in the form of the world's greatest MMORPG, appropriately titled 'Game Over'. You know, the FPS-type thing where the guy holding the controller was also the character in the game. I designed it to be an intricate puzzle which, if executed properly by someone from the outside world, would release me from the glass prison and allow me to unleash my ultimate weapon and get my revenge on humanity... for killing my beloved granddaughter."

Something about this breaking news segment was metaphorically crippling her thought bubble until she could no longer hold it back.

"I'm his granddaughter..."

I'd never heard a Mobian say that word. Ever.

He revealed the sinister grin in his expression again. "Happy holidays, you bastards. I'm taking this to the NEXT—" (split-second screen freakout) "—LEVEL!"

* * *

_So, uh... yeah. What Mark Hoppus said. Happy holidays, you bastards._

**Closing Credits**

It's Christmas Eve and I've only wrapped two f&#kin' presents  
Christmas Eve and I've only wrapped two f&#kin' presents  
And I hate hate hate your guts  
I hate hate hate your guts  
And I'll never talk to you again (unless your dad will suck me off)  
I'll never talk to you again (unless your mom will touch my c&#k)  
I'll never talk to you again (e&#$?late into a sock)  
I'll never talk to you again, I'll never talk to you again

It's Labor Day and my grandpa just ate seven f&#kin' hot dogs  
Labor Day and my grandpa just ate seven f&%kin' hot dogs  
And he s&#t s&#t s&#t his pants  
He's always f&#kin' s&#ttin' his pants  
And I'll never talk to you again (unless your dad will suck me off)  
I'll never talk to you again (unless your mom will touch my c&%k)  
I'll never talk to you again (e&#$!late into a sock)  
I'll never talk to you again, I'll never talk to you again!


End file.
